


if i could fix the falling stars

by akajung



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crossing Timelines, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Psychological Drama, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-15 11:14:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 46,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13612182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akajung/pseuds/akajung
Summary: Losing the love of your life is hard, but convincing yourself to save them from ever disappearing in the first place is even harder. After a whole year filled with devastation and regret, Jaehyun receives a strange phone call that might help him turn things around and change the past.





	1. raining sunbeams

**Author's Note:**

> me: i'm allergic to angst  
>  also me: *writes this*
> 
> this is heavily inspired by the drama signal (which i recently started to watch and immediately fell in love with). there was an episode in which an officer is trying to save his comrade from dying in the present time by communicating with a past counterpart, which is just so... wow. if you haven't watched the drama, please do, it breaks your heart (the good way)!! and also of course i adjusted a few things to match the concept i had in my mind. by no way this is my own ideaーi just explored it in the nct universe.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The calling extended for longer than a couple of seconds – which was also unusual since Johnny usually answered on the first two rings. Jaehyun was just about to hang up and try again when the call suddenly connected, and he immediately shot, “Hey, your boyfriend’s here waiting for your sorry ass, where the hell are you?”
> 
> But the voice that greeted him back wasn’t Johnny’s – it was another man’s voice, deeper and a bit coarse on the edge, as if he hadn’t talked for a long time.

_For in grief nothing "stays put." One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?_

**— C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed**

****

**_20.10.5 // 23:34 PM_ **

Jaehyun lays awake, eyes on the ceiling, hands behind his head.

It’s been awhile now – it’s gotten so late, and he didn’t use to be such an insomniac. Nights were a blessing, a break from his daily obligations, a piece of space where he can be completely at ease within his zone of anodyne. Sometimes, also a piece of space where he can have Taeyong all to himself, free of his friends’ teasings, free of other people’s stares, free of his own longing.

Though no, not anymore. Taeyong doesn’t visit anymore.

Jaehyun rolls to his side, heaving a slow, long sigh. Ignoring the definite hollowness inside of his chest, in which Taeyong’s love should be overflowing like a waterfall, he tries to close his eyes. He always tries. He’s tried a lot of things, not just ignoring his own pain like it doesn’t even exist – he tried acknowledging it, but it ached even more. He tried controlling it, only to fail and have it pour out miserably from every pore of his skin.

He’s still hurt. He’s still grieving. Worst yet, he’s still in love.

It’s been a year already. He really should get over it.

 

**_20.10.5 // 23:47 PM_ **

If he does fall asleep, it’s always short and restless; he’ll wake up soon after a few minutes, ears ringing as if someone’s blaring an alarm right inside of his head, heart beating so hard inside of his chest that it’s painful. He wishes the ringing and the beating can drown the thoughts out, as loud as they are, but they don’t. The thoughts are always, always louder.

He doesn’t cry anymore, not really; he stopped doing so a few months after Taeyong’s departure. He’s never been that much of a crier, anyway. Taeyong was always the frailer one when it comes to emotional outbursts, the softhearted scrawny man. But the thing about the tears that aren’t coming is that they end up residing inside of him, pooling icily, like a slumbering open-ended beast, breathing agitation and unwanted memories and regret all over again into him. If not a beast, then it’s cold hard chains against his ankles and wrists, tying him down to his own emotions, unrelenting and impossible to break out of.

Though it’s not like Jaehyun’s trying to break out of it.

He doesn’t cry, but he does regret. He doesn’t cry, but he does curse. He curses a lot of people. His friends. Taeyong himself. God. Everything, everyone that he could think of – he blames them all. But mostly himself, because even if it had nothing to do with him ever, he was supposed to be there, he was supposed to be fucking _there_.

He didn’t even make it to the hospital in time.

What a fucking joke his life is. He escaped loneliness only to have it knock on his door again sooner than expected – like a long lost friend.

 

**_20.10.5 // 23:58 PM_ **

Earlier that day, Johnny came for a visit, and he said this while Jaehyun busied himself in the kitchen making him coffee: “Jaehyun, it’s been a year. I think you can start learning how to let go.”

(Johnny has been his closest friend since his high school era, probably. He’s Taeyong’s age, an upperclassman, but he has always been so friendly, so full of life that Jaehyun couldn’t just ignore his presence. He used to be suspicious of Johnny – with that kind of foreign handsomeness, wouldn’t Taeyong easily fall for him? – but Johnny made it obvious from the get-go that he and Taeyong were no more than friends of the same class.

“We’re not even that close,” he said back then, laughing with an arm around Jaehyun’s shoulder. They were two years apart, and Johnny’s a tall piece of shit, but Jaehyun’s height could hold its own, too. Taeyong said they looked like they were of the same age. Doyoung said if he didn’t know Jaehyun had the hots for Taeyong, he would’ve thought he was gay for Johnny.)

Jaehyun’s grip on the spoon tightened, but that was it. He kind of wanted to turn and fling it and Johnny, but he didn’t, because frankly he knew Johnny had a point.

“Dunno what you’re talking about,” Jaehyun said, trying to make it sound casual, but Johnny could never be deceived. Not when they’ve been friends for years.

When Jaehyun put the mug of coffee in front of him, Johnny exhaled. “I know you haven’t slept well since last year. Maybe you should try to… forget.”

 _If I could I would_ , Jaehyun thought. Seriously, if he could, he definitely would. Forget all about Taeyong, about his kisses, about his hugs, about his touches, about Jaehyun’s fucking incapability to protect him. Forget all about Jaehyun’s mistakes that cost Taeyong his happiness, his tears, and later his life, too. Forget all about escaping loneliness because apparently Jaehyun’s soulmate wasn’t Taeyong, it was his own isolation.

“Do you think,” Jaehyun begins, after fiddling with the tablecloth after awhile, pausing to let his mind think of something that wouldn’t hurt Johnny, “I haven’t even tried?”

“I didn’t say that,” Johnny said. “Eh, well, I kinda did, I’m sorry. I’m not belittling your pain for losing so much, I just don’t want you to drown in it. _We_ don’t want you to drown in it.”

“Who told you to come here?” Jaehyun asked, smiling a bit.

“Ah, I’m sure you can guess it,” Johnny said, visibly relieved that Jaehyun still remembered basic happy reactions such as smiling.

“Either Taeil or Ten, I bet.”

Johnny hummed. “Doyoung, actually. But whoever told me to check up on you, it doesn’t change the fact that we are all worried about you.”

Jaehyun pinched on the bridge of his nose, feeling a bit of weight washing off his shoulders with every word spilling out of Johnny’s mouth. It didn’t erase all of his grief, but made them fade a little, gave Jaehyun a little bit of hope – but that was it.

“Thanks,” he said then, genuinely thankful, and also regretful because he knew Johnny’s sort-of advice wouldn’t help much. “But I’m doing fine.”

Which was so obviously a lie, a great fucking lie, since now Jaehyun’s laying on his mattress alone, desolate and sequestered by his nightly thoughts, experiencing the one thing Johnny and his friends specifically don’t want him to feel: drowning in his own pain. Four hundred days and more of this goddamned routine, he supposes he should really be getting over it. Yet time guilt-trips him and reminiscences betray him even more, and really, he doesn’t want to escape in the first place.

As Jaehyun tries to fall back asleep for the nth time that night, his phone rings from its place on top of the bedside table.

 

**_18.3.15 // 13:42 PM_ **

“Have you seen Johnny?” Taeil asked, sliding down on a seat across of Jaehyun in the small booth of the campus café. “He was supposed to meet me here at 1 PM straight.”

Jaehyun raised an eyebrow. “He didn’t tell me anything about it.”

The older let out a tired sigh, brushing his hair back from his face and turned to stir his coffee instead. Jaehyun waited for him to say something else, but Taeil never did. He rarely showed irritation – just general exhaustion of everything done wrong in his life. He grinned.

“Don’t worry, hyung. I’m sure he’ll get over here soon,” Jaehyun assured Taeil – or at least _tried_ to, because Jaehyun had no fucking idea where Johnny was and also if he would even show up, considering that he was notorious for forgetting a lot of things.

(Like Jaehyun’s birthday last month, for example. He swore even if he said he’d forgiven him, he would strike back at any given chances.)

“Also,” Jaehyun added, when Taeil still didn’t respond. “You know he’s always game when it comes to you.”

Taeil hummed. “I certainly hope so, Jaehyun.”

“You know what, let me just call him for you.”

“Thanks.”

Jaehyun nodded and fished out his phone from his bag, searching for Johnny’s number on his log. The guy was probably just on an errand and completely forgot about his promise with Taeil – though that shouldn’t be possible since he liked Taeil so much Jaehyun could tell him to cut his fingers off one by one to spell Taeil’s name and he would do it, all the way down to the toes.

He clicked on a number and pressed call, eyes glancing on his watch as he did.

It was now **13:44** – Johnny was 44 minutes late.

The calling extended for longer than a couple of seconds – which was also unusual since Johnny usually answered on the first two rings. Jaehyun was just about to hang up and try again when the call suddenly connected, and he immediately shot, “Hey, your boyfriend’s here waiting for your sorry ass, where the hell are you?”

But the voice that greeted him back wasn’t Johnny’s – it was another man’s voice, deeper and a bit coarse on the edge, as if he hadn’t talked for a long time.

“What?”

Jaehyun frowned. “Hello, who’s this? Where’s Johnny?”

(Why did the voice sound so familiar? Jaehyun was pretty sure he didn’t know this guy. Nobody he knew sounded like that.)

“Johnny?” the man on the phone said, sounding like he was equally as bewildered as Jaehyun was. “He came here this afternoon, but he’s not here anymore. Wait, who are you? And why would you call someone this late at night?”

“Ni – night?” Jaehyun repeated, turning on his seat to see out of the window. It was a fucking bright Friday out there, sunlights on every corner of street. “What do you mean night? It’s like, 2 in the afternoon.”

“What do you mean?” he said. There was a sound as if he was ruffling through the sheets of a bed or something. “It’s midnight here, you’re joking. You’re in Korea, right?”

At this point Taeil was completely focusing on Jaehyun, growing visibly concerned with every confusion Jaehyun encountered with his mysterious phone call. Jaehyun too was also getting worried, and irritated, and also afraid that something might’ve happened on Johnny. Forgetful as he was, Jaehyun would hate it if a serial killer got him.

“Who are you? Where’s Johnny?”

“No, who are _you?_ And why the hell are you looking for Johnny?”

“You know Johnny? Are you his friend?”

“He wouldn’t try to check up on me every week or so to see if I’m still emo over my boyfriend’s death if he wasn’t my friend, smartass,” the man said, now heated. “Forget it, this is stupid. Your prank call is stupid. You should look for better things to do.”

Jaehyun felt heat rising up on the back of his neck – a familiar sign of irritation – and he yelled, “This isn’t a prank ca—“ but the connection already ended before he could curse back at the guy.

Jaehyun nearly smashed his phone on the table, but seeing that Taeil was still there across of him, he didn’t.

“What was that?” Taeil asked as he watched Jaehyun’s frown deepened. “Did something happen to Johnny?”

“No, I think I got the wrong number,” Jaehyun said, and just to be sure, he checked on the call log and wondered if the number on the top of the list was really Johnny’s. Probably not – but if so, then whose was it? Jaehyun wasn’t the type of person to just walk up to a stranger and ask for their number – moreover actually _getting_ it. Did he save the number from somewhere else? A flyer? An ad? It didn’t seem like something that he’d do, but the number was still etched on his screen, a cold hard fact. “I didn’t recognize the voice. It’s no one I know.”

“Really? Why do you have his number in your phone, then?”

“I don’t know, probably saved it from somewhere and forgot,” Jaehyun said, shrugging it off even though it weighed down on the back of his mind. He’d think about it later; he didn’t want to worry Taeil more than he had to. “I’ll just text Ten. Maybe Johnny’s with him.”

“No need, he’s probably busy with something. He’ll come around eventually.”

 

**_18.3.15 // 13:51 PM_ **

As if Taeil’s word was magic, the café door clinked open and a whole lanky mess with the name of Johnny Seo walked in, brown hair wind-swiped and messy. He immediately caught the sight of Taeil – obviously ignoring Jaehyun – and grinned apologetically.

“So sorry!” he exclaimed as he walked over, slipping down next to Jaehyun and reasonably pushing him closer to the wall. Jaehyun grunted, but didn’t say anything. “Had an emergency editing session, gotta make the final paper perfect.”

“It’s okay, I understand,” Taeil said softly, and Jaehyun couldn’t decide whether he wanted to puke or fuss looking at his two friends, staring into each other’s eyes with gazes so full of love that it was sickening. “You should’ve texted, though. Jaehyun tried to call you earlier but it seemed like he got the wrong number.”

“Ah, about that, actually… I ran out of battery on the third period. Sorry, man,” he said, turning to Jaehyun now. “I would’ve texted either of you if I could.”

“’S fine. It’s just that I tried to call you, but got connected to this freak instead,” Jaehyun said, dismissing Johnny’s apology.

“What freak?”

“Well, for one, he asked me why I was bothering him at _midnight_ , while you can see—“ Jaehyun made an exaggerated gesture to the window, “—it’s fucking raining sunbeams out there.”

“You know sick people tend to do that, right?” Taeil chimed in. “He might be sick. A sick person wouldn’t be able to tell time properly, especially if they’ve downed medicines and been asleep for hours—“

“I don’t think he’s sick, hyung,” Jaehyun cut him off. “He sounded sober… but also strange. Like he was lifeless or something.”

“You know you can’t just profile a person just based on a thirty-seconds call,” Taeil reminded him, shifting his cup from one hand to another.

“Also he knows Johnny,” Jaehyun added, nodding at Johnny, who had been listening for awhile now, silent and thinking. “Did one of your friend’s boyfriend die lately or something?”

“No…” Johnny said, words dragging out slowly as he thought. “No, I’m sure I would’ve known if someone died in this campus. Especially if it’s my friend’s boyfriend.”

“Ah,” Jaehyun groaned, scratching his hair harshly. “You know what, maybe he really was a freak. I won’t waste my time mulling over this shit. It was a wrong number, that’s it.”

“Just delete the number and call me properly next time, idiot,” Johnny said, shoving Jaehyun with his shoulder playfully. “Don’t worry about it. This is probably one in a lifetime thing.”

(It wasn’t.)

 

**_18.3.15 // 14:11 PM_ **

“More importantly,” Johnny continued, after he up and went to the counter to order more coffees (one for Taeil and one from himself because Jaehyun didn’t drink hot coffee at 2 fucking PM, unlike anomalies like Taeil and Johnny apparently), “I met Taeyong in the library!”

“Oh, he came back already?” Taeil asked, his face lighting up as he accepted the coffee from Johnny’s hand. “I have to see him later, see if he’s been eating well all alone in California.”

“Like you’re one to talk,” Johnny said, pressing a palm on Taeil’s arm. “You weren’t eating properly when you were in Tokyo, either.”

“But Yuta _was_ there to remind me to actually eat,” Taeil said. “I ate at least twice a day. You know how Taeyong is, he could go on a full day without eating when he’s busy. Two when he’s super busy.”

“A wonder he hasn’t died out of hunger yet.”

“He’s going to be _a_ _doctor_ and he can’t even take care of himself.”

Jaehyun stirred his iced tea on the table, glancing over at Johnny, and then to Taeil, then to Johnny again. “Taeyong… as in your old classmate Taeyong?”

“Yup.”

“He goes to this uni?” Jaehyun was surprised. “How come I didn’t know about this?”

“He got into this medical exchange program in Cali last year,” Johnny explained. “Said he wanted to try neurology, see if he’d like it – and boom, dude’s got the stuff under him in one try. Amazingly irritating, he is.”

“Well, he _is_ talented,” Taeil said genuinely. “Just need to love himself more.”

“Didn’t you talk to him?” Johnny asked Jaehyun. “Back in high school, I mean.”

“Yeah, I did,” Jaehyun said, frowning again now. He barely remembered – Taeyong was one person in Johnny’s circle of friends that Jaehyun didn’t try to befriend simply because he looked so standoffish. He didn’t look evil, but he always looked distant, and that was enough reason for Jaehyun to keep his distance. Also, he was seriously so fucking pretty it’s intimidating.

(“Is he even _human_ ,” Jaehyun remembered asking Johnny this, back in high school, when they were both in the cafeteria and Johnny had just offered Taeyong to eat with them, but the boy refused politely because he had works to do in the library.

“Ha ha,” Johnny said, mockingly laughing at Jaehyun’s evident attraction. No, not attraction – just strong curiousity. “After awhile you’ll get used to it.”

Jaehyun never did, but it could be just because Taeyong graduated before he could.)

“You should see him too, then,” Johnny continued on. “He still remembers you, you know. Probably because he thinks you hated him or something.”

Jaehyun bit down a little too hard on the straw and his teeth gnashed against his tongue – the sudden pain made him choke on his tea, spewing some out to the table. Johnny shrieked in disgust.

“He thinks I _what?_ ”

 

**_18.3.17 // 10:14 AM_ **

Jaehyun didn’t know what to do now that he was here.

Here, as in, here in the campus library, where Lee Taeyong was supposed to be. The guy that thought Jaehyun hated him because Jaehyun never made an attempt to talk to him first. A guy who thought a goddamn underclassman despised him and was seriously dismayed because of it because apparently, Jaehyun had always glared at him for no obvious reason.

The reason was actually pretty obvious from Jaehyun’s standing.

“Well maybe if _he_ wasn’t so intimidating…” Jaehyun said heatedly, back at the café when Taeil had deliberately wiped the tea and spit on the table with a paper towel, while Johnny just wrinkled his nose. “But what the hell, I didn’t hate him!”

“And since when do intimidating people intimidate you?” Johnny said, pointing out a fact. Jaehyun’s head hung low because he was right. “You were never the type to just back down from an unapproachable person, and Taeyong’s the least unfriendly person out there, trust me.”

“He doesn’t look unapproachable at all,” Taeil commented. “At least now. I didn’t know how he was back then.”

“I didn’t hate him,” Jaehyun said again.

“ _We know_ ,” Johnny and Taeil claimed at the same time, exasperated.

“But he doesn’t,” Johnny added. “What, would you like to clear things up? He’ll be your senior soon, you know.”

Which was the reason why Jaehyun was standing here, his hands shoved inside of his pockets, shoulders hunched and mouth scowling. He was here for Taeyong, to apologize for the things he never did and felt simply because it wouldn’t settle right if he just let it be.

(And also he was curious of how attractive Taeyong would be _now_.)

The library was nearly empty at this time of the day, with most people being in class or off goofing in other areas in the campus ground. Only a few people loitered around the bookshelves, and Jaehyun heaved a sigh before he started going through the shelves himself, looking if Taeyong was anywhere in between.

He spotted a familiar-looking scrawny man on the hindmost aisle, holding a thick book under one arm and another between his knees. He was reaching toward the highest panel – Jaehyun noticed that his fingernails were long but well-shaped, like crescent moons – tiptoeing on his feet. As if it was a bodily reflex, Jaehyun stalked closer and reached out a hand to help him take the book he wanted.

“Thank you,” the man breathed, and when he turned to look at him, Jaehyun’s heart almost stopped dead in its  track. He kind of knew who this man was from the beginning – if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t even help him – but it still hit him like a solid hard hammer to see Taeyong’s face up close; the prettiness of lashes and pale skin and shapely lips and angular lines. He hadn’t seen him in two or three years at most probably, but the effect of Taeyong’s face had never changed; it still knocked the breath out of his lungs and filled his mind with vacuity dotted with astonishment. It was _hard_ to not get smitten right there and then.

Jaehyun stuttered on his own words. “Er, um, hey.”

Taeyong’s mouth formed an ‘o’ as he looked up to Jaehyun’s eyes, then to his whole face, and to his oustretched hand, holding Taeyong’s book between the fingers. “Oh, Jaehyun.”

So he _did_ remember his name.

“I am,” Jaehyun said. Then he cleared his throat. “Um, I am Jaehyun, I mean.”

A pair of straight brows shot to the strands between Taeyong’s fringes. “I know,” Taeyong said, reasonably, as he took the books from under his arm and his knees. “Jung Jaehyun, Johnny’s first-year friend.”

“Well, I’m no longer a first-year but,” Jaehyun said, “I am Johnny’s friend.”

“What brought you here at this hour?” Taeyong asked again, now turning around to walk to the reading area. Jaehyun had no choice but to follow quietly, though his mind is in a raging storm of what he should say as an excuse of why he was there, with Taeyong, at _this_ unlikely hour to go to the library.

His mind suddenly hooked on the odd phone call from yesterday afternoon, for whatever reason. _He wouldn’t try to check up on me every week or so to see if I’m still emo over my boyfriend’s death if he wasn’t my friend_ , he’d said. Odd as it was, the guy sounded like he wasn’t lying, at least. He _did_ sound distressed. Even if Jaehyun couldn’t believe the whole ordeal, he’d still believe that the guy was actually devastated over something.

“I wanted to borrow some, um, self-care books,” Jaehyun quickly lied. “Or self-heal books. To overcome grief or something like that.”

Taeyong put down his books on the smooth glassy table before looking at Jaehyun again. Even if Jaehyun had already seen and felt the effects of his near-perfect face, it still struck him like a lightning bolt when Taeyong looked at him like this every time.

“What kind of grieving?” Taeyong then asked, his tone careful, and Jaehyun didn’t miss the concern in his voice, too. Damn, just how _good_ was he? “Are you okay?”

“Oh, it’s not for me,” Jaehyun hurriedly said again, waving his hand anxiously. “It’s for a friend. Yep. My friend. He’s just lost a lover, I heard.”

Taeyong hummed in understanding. “That’s really too bad for him. If you want that kind of books, you should try searching in Section 8, over there—“ Taeyong stopped to point at a direction behind Jaehyun, his finger barely missing Jaehyun’s shoulders, “—since they store most personal health books over there. It’s mostly physical health like dieting and so, but there are some about mental health care if you look hard enough.”

Jaehyun was impressed. “Do you memorize the place of every book in this library?”

“I just happened to borrow the same kind of books you’re looking for last year,” Taeyong said, shrugging. For a second there, Jaehyun thought that the corners of his mouth were curving up, as if he was holding back a smile, but then it disappeared. “For my paper, you know. I’ve scavenged through almost all aisles in this library for my paper.”

(Last year would be around when Jaehyun first enrolled in the campus. It might explain why he’d never known Taeyong was even here since the guy spent so much of his time in the library researching stuff for his work.)

“So you do memorize everything.”

“Just a little bit. Also, my friend’s the librarian.”

Taeyong jabbed his thumb at the administrative desk up front, where a couple of people were working; one was a guy around Jaehyun’s age, with soft-colored reddish hair, while the other is a girl that Jaehyun has probably encountered a few times at the cafeteria, maybe one of the girls that hung with Sooyoung and the others.

“The guy or the girl?” Jaehyun asked, even though the question wasn’t important at all, he just felt like asking it, grabbing for something that might let him talk to Taeyong a little bit longer.

“The guy. That’s Doyoungie,” Taeyong explained. “He didn’t go to the same school as we did, so you probably don’t know him. I do know the girl, though. I think she’s called Wendy.”

Taeyong used this chance after he spoke to slide down on the chair, while Jaehyun was still standing and staring at the desk. Then, seeing that Taeyong had begun to open up his books, Jaehyun decided that maybe he had to live up to his excuse and turned to get himself a few self-care books from Section 8.

Jaehyun’s mind was blank the whole time he rummaged through the bookshelves, searching for a book he didn’t even want.

 

**_18.3.17 // 10:47 AM_ **

“So how do you borrow these things?”

Taeyong looked up from his own book, gaze immediately latching on to Jaehyun’s, then to a couple of books he had in his hands. Jaehyun tried to pretend he wasn’t completely troubled by it – by Taeyong’s straightforward attention. Now that he thought about it, the guy didn’t look at all aloof. Just… kind of lonely.

“Have you never borrowed something at the library before?” Taeyong asked judiciously.

“I have… I have never,” Jaehyun admitted, a little sheepishly. It was true; he’d never once stepped foot in this library, nor the one in his school back then.

Taeyong finally smiled, and Jaehyun felt something inside of him liquesced, like snow on the very first day of spring. He didn’t know what kind of feeling that was. Relief? Contentment? Awe?

“You’re not missing a lot,” Taeyong simply said. “Just walk up to the desk and say you’re borrowing those. They’ll probably need your student card if you’re a first-timer.”

“Oh,” Jaehyun said in a small voice. “I might… I might have left my student card at home.”

Taeyong paused, a hand in the middle of flipping a page. Then he shrugged. “Oh well. Just walk up there and tell Doyoung I’m the one borrowing.”

“What?”

“Just tell Doyoung I’m the one borrowing.“

“No, what I mean is… would that really be okay?” Jaehyun asked, concerned now. Taeyong was seriously too good to be true, too kind and considerate even to a sort-of stranger he thought had hated him. Not to mention that these books weren’t even that important in the first place. “I could just—“

“It’s okay, Jaehyun,” Taeyong insisted. “I don’t mind.”

But Jaehyun did mind. Muttering an unclear apology to Taeyong as he went, he borrowed the books. Doyoung didn’t even bat an eyelash when Jaehyun said Taeyong’s name, just writing down the book numbers then immediately giving them back to Jaehyun. _Wow_ , Jaehyun thought, _he must be a serious regular._

“Thanks,” he said to Taeyong, when he came back to the table where Taeyong was. “You don’t have to do this, but thanks.”

“No problem,” Taeyong said, and he smiled again, sending Jaehyun’s inside into more disarray. “I hope your friend will get better soon. It’s really hard to overcome grief.”

As Jaehyun descended the library stairs outside, heading toward his class, he remembered that he’d completely forgotten to apologize for making Taeyong think he hated him.

 

**_20.10.6 // 00:07 AM_ **

“What the hell?”

Jaehyun nearly throws his phone to the nearest flat surface – which would either be his wall or his floor, but he doesn’t (and figures his future self will thank him for that decision). Instead, he grips on it and stares so hard at the screen until his eyes hurt, at the private number that had just called him.

Jaehyun had never been pranked call by anyone before, but he never thought it’d be that bad. It had only been thirty seconds at most, but why did it wake him up like a bucketful of ice water was dumped onto him? Not to mention the absurdity of the call is biting down on his consciousness, like a really bad joke.

_“Hello, who’s this? Where’s Johnny?”_

Jaehyun frowns, looking back at the private number on the top of his call log, as if he looked at it long enough the number would suddenly spout a name or something. The caller seemed to know Johnny, and just how many Johnnys are there in this whole country?

He wonders if it was just one of his friends attempting to cheer him up (by pissing him off this late at night), but he didn’t recognize the voice as theirs. Sounded familiar, but definitely wasn’t his friends’.

Whose was it, then?

_“What do you mean night? It’s like, 2 in the afternoon.”_

That, too. What was he talking about? Jaehyun had to actually get up and check out of the window to see if he was the one going crazy, but he wasn’t – at least not now. The sky is jet black outside, not even an ounce of stars, and the streetlights are dimming down into a complete darkness. What kind of afternoon did he mean, seriously? Jaehyun saw none.

_“Who are you? Where’s Johnny?”_

How dare he asked who Jaehyun was when he was the one calling him first!

“No, who are _you?_ And why the hell are you looking for Johnny?” Jaehyun nearly shouted to the phone, pulling it away from his ear. _Is he a serial killer_ , Jaehyun thought, _is this seriously a prank call? Is Johnny okay?_

_“You know Johnny? Are you his friend?”_

“He wouldn’t try to check up on me every week or so to see if I’m still emo over my boyfriend’s death if he wasn’t my friend, smartass!” Jaehyun had yelled, extremely maddened that he’d lost control of his thoughts. Then he stopped himself, stunned by the words that had just tumbled out of his mouth.

If he wasn’t so weirded out by the whole situation, he wouldn’t have said that much. It was never his thing to let out his feelings like that. Feelings are made to be stored away in a locked safe inside of your heart, never to be exposed, never to be recognized, unless you want them torn apart and dilapidated. Yet he just did that – to a complete stranger, no less. If this guy was one of his friends, he’d be in deep shit tomorrow. They’d definitely come to his doorstep and start yelling at him.

Heaving a deep sigh, Jaehyun finally said, “Forget it, this is stupid. Your prank call is stupid. You should look for better things to do.”

And before he could change his mind and get even more confused _and_ irritated, he ended the call, a bit too forcefully that his thumb nearly slipped down the screen and twisted itself.

So now Jaehyun is laying back down on his bed, one leg down to the floor. He’s still looking at the screen of his phone, and even though he isn’t as annoyed as he was before, it’s still not settling right down in his stomach, like a bad premonition. Seriously, if it was truly a prank call, they could’ve done it in broad daylight, at least. Jaehyun would never expect his first time receiving a prank call would be like this, when he is at his most vulnerable and broken, prone to every slumbering agony that Taeyong’s departure might have implanted in him.

Jaehyun closes his eyes, still thinking about the call. The whole stupid, absurd call.

(At least it helped him take his mind off Taeyong for awhile.)

Then suddenly, he opens his eyes again. His mind has hooked on a memory, so old that he must’ve forgotten it, stored so deep that if the call hadn’t happened, it probably would never resurface again.

Didn’t he receive the same kind of call in the past?

 

**_20.10.6 // 08:32 AM_ **

“Prank call?” Johnny repeats, stabbing the pancake on his plate a little absentmindedly.

Jaehyun shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Yeah, at midnight, no less. You didn’t do that, did you? I’ll kill you.”

They are now sitting on the outdoor area of Johnny’s favorite breakfast place, after Jaehyun called him in the morning and told him he wanted to go out for some fresh air. On normal occasion, Jaehyun wouldn’t even consider going out on a busy Monday morning, but just for today, he feels like seeing another living person outside of his home might do him some good. He also has some things to discuss with Johnny, so there’s that.

(Johnny nearly cried when he heard that Jaehyun was finally going out again – aside from for work – after months. He yelled to the phone, “Fina-fucking-lly!” and Jaehyun had to end the call before the taller man started crying for real. He didn’t need to hear that.)

“You’re joking. I was fucki—I mean, I was with Taeil at midnight,” Johnny corrects himself, clearing his throat, while Jaehyun just scrunches his nose. Honestly, Johnny could try doing a better job keeping his nightly activities with Taeil a secret. “Why would I prank call you anyway, huh?”

“I don’t know, to piss me off?” Jaehyun suggests.

“ _Dude_ ,” Johnny says as he stops eating and points his fork at Jaehyun’s face. He looks really offended that Jaehyun even considered him one of the suspects of his earlier midnight occurrence. “That’s the last thing I want to do to you these days. I want to make you happy, not make you suffer more.”

“Yeah, no need to rub it in,” Jaehyun says, stirring his coffee even though it’s already mixed so well. “It didn’t sound like any of you guys anyway. I was just asking.”

“But he was looking for me?” Johnny asks.

“Yep.”

“That’s really weird.”

“Tell me about it.”

“No, I mean,” Johnny says. “It’s so abnormally weird. Doesn’t make sense at all. Why would a friend of mine call you, of all people? I never made it my habit to give out your number to other people. I never made it  my habit go give out anyone’s number, actually.”

“ _Tell me about it._ ”

Johnny hums, before once again fixing his focus on his food. Jaehyun, feeling hungry after not eating properly for the last few weeks, steals Johnny’s fork from his hand and cuts a piece of pancake for himself. Johnny lets him do it without complaining. He’s probably noticed that Jaehyun hasn’t been too immersed in eating well nowadays.

“You know,” Johnny suddenly says. “Didn’t something like this happen before?”

Jaehyun whips his head up. “You think so, too?”

Johnny nods, rubbing his fingers together idly. “Yeah. I feel like I’ve seen you complain like this before.”

“How long ago was that, you think?” Jaehyun asks, leaning forward to Johnny, eager for information. He doesn’t know why, but it just feels _important_ to try and know more about that old, fuzzy piece of memory. Like they might be connected or something.

“I don’t know, I don’t have the greatest memory,” Johnny says. “I think Taeil was there too, though.”

“So it was probably when we were in college, then?”

“Maybe. I told you I can’t remember well. It’s really hazy.”

“Ah,” Jaehyun says, exhaling loudly, leaning back to his chair away from Johnny. “You’re so dependable, Johnny Seo.”

Johnny makes a gesture as if he’s going to chuck the fork at Jaehyun. “You’re lucky I love you, Jung, or else I’ll really make you suffer.”

 

**_20.10.6 // 12:23 PM_ **

Jaehyun ends up spending half of the day in Johnny’s flat, falling asleep against Taeil’s thin frame on the couch as they watch re-runs of various variety shows while Johnny was off working. _It’s weird_ , he thinks, when he wakes up hours later, that he can finally sleep more than just ten minutes for a change.

Maybe it’s the body warmth he’s missing, since he was so used to sleeping and waking with Taeyong’s arms around him; Taeil’s hand on the top of his head feels a bit different, just warmer and lighter. But it does help him feel a little better, a little comforted, more than the amount of comfort he lets himself feel after Taeyong is gone.

In short, it’s a break from his own self-punishment.

“You can spend a night here if you want,” Taeil offers, when Jaehyun says this out loud.

(For some reason, he always feels like talking to Taeil about his true feelings is much more easier than talking to Johnny. Probably because Taeil studied psychology in college and is an operational therapist at a nearby clinic. At least he makes Jaehyun’s sort-of theraphy sessions free of charge.)

“Nah, I love my bed,” Jaehyun says, even though both of them know the reason why he never spends the night at their place is because he doesn’t want to get in the couple’s way. “I  also don’t want to hear you guys fucking through the walls—“

“We can make you hot food here,” Taeil insists, cutting Jaehyun off cleanly without hesitation, as if he never talked in the first place. “Actual hot food. How long has it been since you last cooked?”

“I cooked hot food last week.”

Taeil sighs. “Hot food that isn’t ramen, Jaehyun.”

He winces. “Well…”

“If it’s clothes you worry about, you can always borrow Johnny’s,” Taeil says again, before Jaehyun can voice out what’s on his mind. It’s not necessarily the clothes that bothers him – but more of him being a burden, and also a thought that he doesn’t _deserve_ this much comfort. Not when he’s killed Taeyong by negligence.

“I don’t know, Taeil,” Jaehyun says, in a shriller voice. “I just… you know.”

“I’m a psychotherapist, Jaehyun, not a mind reader,” Taeil reminds him gently. “Unless you really tell me what you think, I can’t guess you.”

“But I thought you can read people?”

Taeil grins. “A bit, but it’s better when people are being honest with you. I don’t really like to speculate things about my clients. I could always be wrong, you know.”

“So I’m a client?”

“You’re my client _and_ my friend,” Taeil declares, flicking Jaehyun’s forehead with his fingers.  There’s a soft affection contained in the gesture, passing through Jaehyun’s skin like electricity. “If you want to tell me things while that blabbermouth Johnny isn’t around, now is the perfect time.”

Taeil lets Jaehyun consider his suggestion for a few minutes, the younger contemplating about the consequences of both keeping things to himself and letting Taeil peek a bit inside. It’s so _tempting_ just let things out, to tell Taeil about the sleepless, restless nights he’s been through; the sad dreams; the amassing regret that’s gradually poisoning his life, but Jaehyun is just so, so afraid that he doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t deserve Taeil’s sympathy, doesn’t deserve anyone’s sympathy, really. He doesn’t deserve anything good at all.

“Jaehyun,” Taeil says, when he thinks that maybe Jaehyun’s silence is getting a little bit too long. “Whatever’s going on in there, I’m telling you that the most important thing is you need to stop blaming yourself first.”

Jaehyun pauses. Taeil’s words sink right in, like bitter medicine, and Jaehyun hates medicine.

“I thought you don’t like to speculate.”

“I’m not speculating, I’m stating the facts,” Taeil swiftly says. “I’ve handled my fair share of grieving people at work, Jaehyun. I can at least recognize the basic symptoms. I can at least recognize the common mental reactions.”

“Well, okay then,” Jaehyun says, inadvertently crossing his arms on top of his stomach. For now he just wants to steer the conversation somewhere else, away from the self-blaming part, because now that Jaehyun has thought about it, it’s exactly what he’s doing. Taeil doesn’t need to get the confirmation he wants and dreads. “List down the symptoms, I’ll check it if it’s true.”

Taeil laughs, seemingly oblivious of Jaehyun’s plot, and puts his hand on Jaehyun’s forehead, fingers weaving between his hair. His palm is also drier than Taeyong’s, or at least the bits and pieces of Taeyong’s touch that he still remembers. Jaehyun doesn’t know if he should shift away. He wants to, so much, to distance himself from Taeil’s kindness that he doesn’t deserve, but he doesn’t want to offend him.

“So the physical symptoms of grief on adults usually include exhaustion,” he says. “The awful kind of exhaustion, by the way. Restlessness. A lot of headaches.”

“Check. Check. Check.”

“Loss of appetite,” Taeil tries again. “Anxiety attack. Having troubles sleeping.”

“Check. Not really. Super check.”

“Do you know that lack of sleeping and eating properly could make your anxiety worse?” Taeil asks him, and Jaehyun shrugs. “Well, now you know. Do something about it.”

“Are these symptoms supposed to scare me or what?” Jaehyun asks, looking up at Taeil, whose gaze is on the TV but Jaehyun knows his mind is somewhere far away.

“I doubt it scares you, but it scares _me_ ,” Taeil tells him. “I’ve seen the effects grieving can inflict on different clients. Some of them get through it. Some of them get over it. But those who don’t… they’re not really hale and hearty now.”

“Do you think I can seriously be… be hale and hearty again after Taeyong—after he isn’t around anymore?” Jaehyun shoots out, carelessly smacking his own head against Taeil’s rib in the process of getting up. The both of them groan in unison.

(“Shit, sorry!”

“You have a hard head.” There’s a pause as Taeil rubs the spot where Jaehyun’s head has bumped against.)

“Is that really what you’re thinking?” he then asks. “That’s your most honest feeling? That you won’t ever be okay again after you lost him?”

Jaehyun looks straight up to the ceiling, wondering if really should deny it (which is arguably harder now) or just continue on now that he’s let it out already (which is even harder). When he doesn’t reply for another long time, Taeil sighs.

“Or do you not _want_ to be okay?” Taeil continues, his tone extremely careful and controlled. If Jaehyun wants to retreat, physically getting away from Taeil, he can’t, because Taeil’s hand on his head seems to work as an anchor (or a shackle, or whatever) that’s keeping him drawn and pressed against him. What the hell kind of therapist uses gentle forcefulness to force a confession out of his client’s mouth? Just Taeil. “Do you actually enjoy drowning in your regret? Because you think you deserve it?”

“Deserve what?” Jaehyun accidentally asks, even though he’s made a resolve not to give in and keep his mouth shut in front of Taeil. Well, that resolve has just went to dust. For the second time in a long time, Jaehyun has let his emotions got the better of him.

“Deserve happiness,” Taeil says. “Deserve forgiveness. Deserve anything that’s good.”

“I don’t…” Jaehyun says, voice dry. “I don’t think that.”

Which is an obvious lie, because that’s what he thinks about all the time – that he’s undeserving of everything good that Taeil has spoken of.

“Nobody’s telling you it’s gonna be easy,” he says. Now he’s frowning, fingers hardening on Jaehyun’s skin. “I just want you try. Maybe open up a bit. To me. To anyone else that you want, if you still don’t want me. If you’re not gonna do it for yourself, at least do it for us.”

Jaehyun chews down on his bottom lip, biting back a smile. “Who are _you_ that I should do so much for you?”

(But of course he doesn’t mean that. He’d do anything for Taeyong, but Taeil and Johnny were always a close second on the I’ll Give Up All My Life For You list.)

Taeil pulls his hand back and makes a motion as if he’s about to flick Jaehyun’s eyeball off. “We’re your friends, ass,” he says, though he’s smiling, too. “You’re lucky Johnny isn’t around to hear that.”

Taeil doesn’t make clear of the fact that Jaehyun was not denying his claim of not wanting to open up just yet.

 

**_20.10.6 // 14:52 PM_ **

“On a completely different note,” Jaehyun says, when they’re both in the kitchen, Taeil standing by the stove to watch over the boiling soup, while Jaehyun is sitting down backwards on the dining chair, “Have someone ever prank called you before?”

It takes a moment for Taeil to respond. “Prank calling is still a thing?”

He’s got a point.

“True,” Jaehyun agrees, silently commending Taeil for his quick follow-up despite his dawdling tendencies at many important times. “But yeah, to some people who have a lot of free time, why not?”

“Why _yes?_ ” Taeil shoots again, turning to look at Jaehyun with a ladle in hand, dripping broth from the smoking tip. “You know, I can never get the excuse ‘having too much free time’ down to a science…”

“You’re thinking too far of it,” Jaehyun quickly says, waving his hand. “What I mean is, I think someone prank called me yesterday.”

“Did they really?” Taeil says, turning once again to face the stove. “Did you find out who it was?”

“No, not yet,” Jaehyun says. “I just… I thought it was one of you guys attempting to piss me off, but it didn’t sound like anyone I know.”

“So it was a complete stranger, then.”

“I… I think so,” Jaehyun says, more slowly now. He tries to think back to it, to the voice he’s heard at midnight yesterday. It feels wrong to just say that it was a stranger who called him, since his voice sounded so oddly familiar, but it definitely wasn’t his friends, so it _has_ to be a stranger.

Who else could it be, really? It has to be someone he doesn’t know, even if it raises more questions about the incident itself, and adds a whole new level of creepiness to it.

Taeil, being Taeil, of course catches on to Jaehyun’s hesitancy. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“No, just… Johnny said something like this also happened in the past,” Jaehyun says. He’s feeling slightly dizzy now, and shifts in his seat to rest his head down on his arms. “Do you remember something like that? If it’s you, you should have better memories than Johnny, at least.”

“Let me think about it,” Taeil says. “How far back was this, can you give me a keyword?”

“Two to three years at most,” Jaehyun replies. “When we were still in college, I think. I can’t remember all that well, too, so.”

“Hmm,” Taeil hums. “Hmm, I think something like that _did_ happen.”

“Really?” Jaehyun looks up so fast he nearly twists his neck.

“Yeah,” Taeil says, glancing at Jaehyun over his shoulders. “But you didn’t receive it. You did it, I think.”

“ _What?_ ”

“I don’t mean you were the one who prank called someone,” Taeil easily says. “I think you just called the wrong number, and the person answering was weird. That’s it.”

“Weird?” Jaehyun repeats, rubbing his neck as he thinks. He still can’t remember how the whole thing went; little details are shifting in and out of actuality on the bottom of his mind, as if they don’t want to come up. “Weird like what?”

Taeil hums again, stretching his fingers on the hold of the ladle as he tries to remember more. “I don’t really remember,” he finally says. “The memory is fuzzy, but what I do remember is you were trying to call Johnny for me.”

Jaehyun’s gaze drops from Taeil’s back to the floor. “Johnny?”

“Yeah.”

That reminds him of the conversation he had with the tall guy earlier this morning. “I feel like I’ve seen you complain like this before,” Johnny had said. And also, other than that, “Why would a friend of mine call you, of all people?”

“He was looking for Johnny, too,” Jaehyun suddenly says. “The man on the phone. He was looking for Johnny.”

“Did he?” Taeil asks. “That’s weird coincidence. Did you ask Johnny if one of his friends might’ve called you by accident?”

“No. Yes. I mean I asked, but it wasn’t one of his friends,” Jaehyun says. “Wouldn’t it be weird if someone that he knows but I don’t start calling me, though? It all doesn’t make sense.”

“The whole concept of prank calling someone at ungodly hour doesn’t make sense,” is Taeil’s final comment, which Jaehyun approves in silence.

 

**_20.10.6 // 16:32 PM_ **

Though Taeil keeps on insisting that Jaehyun should spend the night at their place, he finally manages to slip away from the older’s gripping proposition. He does make Jaehyun bring home some of the meat-and-potatoes stew he’d cooked with their green Tupperware (Taeil is an avid collector, and Johnny often becomes the witness/victim of experiencing Taeil’s rare berserk mode firsthand when he loses one) though, and Jaehyun comes home with a two-days worth of home-cooked dinner.

“Make sure you heat it up properly before you eat,” Taeil reminds him, standing near the door frame as Jaehyun bends down to fix his shoelaces in the hallway. “You can always come back here to restock your food – or I’ll just send some to you via Johnny.”

“Your man has already worked hard enough as it is,” Jaehyun says with a short laugh. “And he’s not my babysitter. I’ll be fine on my own.”

That’s another lie, one that he’s spouted so many times over the past few months that it should’ve become the truth by now. Jaehyun _won’t_ be fine on his own, but at least he won’t die. (But won’t he, really? Has anyone ever died out of loneliness? Out of grief? Jaehyun won’t be the first, and also not the last.)

Taeil’s expression also says it so clearly: _I doubt that_ , but he doesn’t say it out loud. Probably out of pity. Instead, he smiles and waves at Jaehyun like Jaehyun is really as fine as he looks on the outside, and not a broken human being inside.

“I’ll call you later,” he promises, and Jaehyun nods, grateful.

Jaehyun descends the metal steps with Taeil’s well-veiled concerned gaze still on his back, not burning but just poking quietly on him.

The residual sense of heartening security he’s gotten from Taeil’s presence moments earlier gradually diminishes as he enters the subway and sits down on one of the empty seats. He considers the hassle of pulling out his earphones from his jacket and untangling it, see if he can drown out his thoughts (recently updated by Taeil’s uninvited talk-to-me-please-about-your-depression session) but decides against it in the end. Instead, he leans his head back against the window and closes his eyes, hugging the Tupperware containing Taeil’s stew in front of his chest, hoping the still-there heat can at least help warm up the coldness in his heavy chest.

 

**_20.10.6 // 18:03 PM_ **

Jaehyun takes off his shoes and thinks about the amount of lies he has gushed today. It’s too much to count, too much that he’s gotten so ridiculously used to it, so he doesn’t bother – just letting the uncountable amount settles down, as a noteworthy reminder of how much worse his life has turned out to be.

 

**_20.10.6 // 21:19 PM_ **

Jaehyun usually washes the dish immediately after he eats (a habit he’s picked up from Taeyong), but this one night he doesn’t. He lets the dirty bowl he used sits on the sink and decides he will deal it with it tomorrow, before he goes for his morning shift.

Taeil remembered his promise to call Jaehyun around dinnertime. He asked Jaehyun how the stew was, and did he drink a lot of water, or if he still had food in his fridge. Jaehyun told him that the stew was great, he drunk a lot of water, and he had vegetables that Doyoung bought in his fridge, though he didn’t mention to Taeil that they have been sitting there for the past couple of months and Jaehyun has never touched them even once.

“You’re going straight to bed?” Taeil asked, when Jaehyun turned on the faucet after eating and picked his brush up. His toothpaste stock was declining – he had to remind himself to pick up some on his way back from work tomorrow.

“I have morning shift,” Jaeyun said. “Can’t stay up for too long.”

“That’s an achievement considering you usually only go to sleep way past midnight,” Taeil commented lightly.

 _Talking about midnight_ , Jaehyun thinks later on, after Taeil has said his goodbye and he’s moved to the bed, insentiently flattening the creased edges of his sheets with his palm as he does. The prank call he’d received yesterday happened at midnight. Will there be another call tonight or was that really a one-time thing?

Jaehyun hopes the latter.

(No, of course not.)

 

**_20.10.6 // 23:56 PM_ **

Jaehyun didn’t plan to, but he wakes himself up four minutes before midnight.

Or maybe it was his body that wakes him, for whatever reason, since he has no idea why he’s suddenly up, staring at the ceilings again after sinking in a dreamless yet agitated sleep. He has to take a few short seconds trying to register the things surrounding him, wondering if he’s woolgathering or if he’s awake for real. It’s getting harder to differentiate between realities nowadays.

Then his phone vibrates from its place on the bedside table, and Jaehyun groans.

“Oh, fuck,” he whines. “ _Seriously?_ ”

He considers leaving it be, but it doesn’t feel right to him. So he reaches out a tired hand to pluck his phone and checks who’s calling him this late at night – and surer than ever, it’s yesterday’s private number again. His prank caller is back for more, apparently.

“I need you to stop calling me,” Jaehyun immediately says, after he receives the call and putting it on speaker for good measure (who knows, he might need to yell again). “I told you to look for better things to do. This isn’t funny.”

“What? This isn’t – it’s _you_ again?”

“What?” Jaehyun frowns, narrowing eyes to stare at the screen, as if he can suddenly see the other guy if he stares hard and long enough. It’s still a normal call, not a video call. “Don’t talk like I was the one calling you at random hours. It’s been you since yesterday. You started this.”

The guy on the other end of the line seems to fumble with his words a bit before he replies, “Do you think I want this? I wasn’t even trying to call you!”

“Then why are you talking to me right now?” Jaehyun demands, scratching his head so violently that his nails drag over his scalp painfully. “It’s still mid-fucking-night over here, kid. At least if you want to prank call someone, get the time right.”

Another fumbling with words. “I… I’m not prank calling you, I swear. Also, it’s still midnight at your place? What the hell?”

“What now?” Jaehyun tiredly asks. “Let me guess. It’s raining sunbeams over there.”

 _Raining sunbeams_ , he’s just said. What kind of phrase is that, even? Jaehyun has no idea from where he pulled it out from, seemingly just saying it out of the blue, but he’s sure he’s never said it before in his life. Yet the words feel familiar on his tongue, like tasting back an outdated fruit candy from your childhood that you haven’t eaten in years.

Raining sunbeams. Raining sunbeams… Has he really never said that before? It’s a really specific phrase, it shouldn’t be hard to remember.

“Raining sunbeams,” the guy repeats. Unless Jaehyun is very mistaken, the phrase also sounds familiar to him. “I – yeah, it’s still 2 in the afternoon. Listen, I know this is weird, but I swear to whatever god that exists out there I’m not messing with you. My phone just connects every call I make to you. It’s freaky. It’s fucking creepy, but I swear I’m not doing this on purpose. You gotta believe me.”

Jaehyun exhales, rolling back to his stomach and puts the phone on his pillow. For some unknown reasons, even if he shouldn’t believe this unidentified guy so easily, even if these stupid midnight (prank?) calls are annoying, he strangely does. His mind is slowly functioning back after his restive slumber a few minutes ago, trying so hard to connect one piece of occurrence to another – but between those linking works, he feels like there’s a space for some trust, some reliance, even if it’s such a small space. Even if it seems impossible.

(The guy on the phone always sounds genuine, anyway; he doesn’t seem like he’s staging all this just to get on Jaehyun’s nerve. At least if it was _him_ , he wouldn’t give out this much effort to get on someone’s nerve. Maybe he’s telling the truth. Maybe Jaehyun just wants to be less angry and get more distraction at night.)

“Eh, and my phone just strangely receives your freak call everytime at midnight,” Jaehyun finally says, after some more thinking. “Fine, I get it.”

“You get it?” the guy asks, now sounding hopeful. “Do you believe me?”

“I... kinda do, but that still doesn’t mean this whole thing makes sense,” Jaehyun says. “If anything, it makes this worse. I mean, I’m losing sleep over this shit, I have to know why it happens. Have you checked if it’s your network or something?”

“I haven’t, but I’m pretty sure whatever the hell is happening has nothing to do with my phone network,” he says. “Can network error do this? I don’t think so. The timing’s too specific since yesterday. No slip could be that particular.”

“So what’s your theory then? A glitch in your phone?” Jaehyun says wearily. “I doubt it. Even if there was something wrong with your phone, why would it connect you to _me_ , of all people? We probably live in different states, too, looking at our differing time.”

 _Wait_ , _if we really live in different states_ , Jaehyun suddenly thinks, disconcerted, _why is there so much time difference?_ They’re both talking fluent Korean – it’s impossible for them to be in the same country with over six hours of difference, unless the other person is a Korean student studying overseas. It’s possible, but the chance is just so low, too low for Jaehyun to consider seriously. He quietly pushes this thought to the back of his mind when the other guy starts talking again.

“What if it’s a glitch in your phone?”

“I am the one _receiving_ your call, there’s no way in hell it’s my phone.”

“Oh, you’re right.”

There’s a pause between them for awhile. Jaehyun uses the silence to think about where has he heard this voice before. He really does sound familiar, too familiar, but not one of his friends.

“Sorry,” the guy later says, when Jaehyun is busy with his own thoughts.

“For what?” Jaehyun asks, but not unkindly.

“For this. For making you lose sleep. Isn’t it midnight over there? If I could, I wouldn’t even try to call you, you know. I can’t even end this call. Look – well, you can’t, but – right now I’m pressing the end call button repeatedly and it doesn’t work.”

Another pause filled with confusion. Jaehyun feels another series of strange yet familiar warmth inside of his chest – pooling like a rippling pond. Really, the feelings are so earnestly conversant that it hurts. Also, this stranger is apologizing to him for the things he doesn’t do on purpose. If Jaehyun wasn’t impressed by that, he would be a heartless, mannerless guy.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Jaehyun replies, trying to sound as sincere as possible. “I was really pissed at first, but if you’re really saying the truth, then it’s not your fault.”

“If you could actually receive the call at, say, 9 PM, I would feel less bad about it,” he says, and Jaehyun unconsciously smiles (even though he doesn’t realize this until later). “So sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Jaehyun tells him again. “I don’t sleep well these days anyway.”

There’s another pause, and then the guy seems to once again fumble with his words. He’s hesitating, but finally he asks, “Is it… is it because you’re still grieving?”

Ah, yeah. There was that thing Jaehyun said yesterday when he was too annoyed and sleep deprived to think clearly. He’s completely forgotten.

“Oh,” Jaehyun says. He wonders if he should play dumb, if he should act like he’s never blurted that shit out, or if he should just be honest for once. “Oh, well, um…”

Fuck it. He’s tired of lying.

“I guess,” he says. “It’s not easy.”

He’s tired of hiding.

“It’s a really messed up feeling, so,” Jaehyun says, before clearing his throat for a bit. “I suggest you try your best to show your affection to the people around you. Since they could be gone at any moment, you know.”

“That sucks,” the guy finally says, after keeping quiet while Jaehyun talked. “That really sucks. I don’t know what kind of person are you, but I’m sure you don’t deserve that.”

It’s strange. It’s really strange that Jaehyun can talk about this, about his struggles, though vague but still honest, without feeling like he has to reel back in before he lets out too much. It’s really strange that he’s not seeing the limit of how far he can go with his honesty. But what’s really, really strange is that Jaehyun doesn’t feel like he’s undeserving of this familiar stranger’s comfort.

Jaehyun chews on his lip.

 _You don’t deserve that_ , he’d said, and maybe he’s right. Jaehyun doesn’t deserve comfort for losing Taeyong, but maybe he doesn’t deserve losing him in the first place.

“Yeah, I—“ Jaehyun begins, but before he could say anything else, the call abruptly ends.

 

**_21.10.7 // 02:10 AM_ **

Jaehyun dreams of his reflection in the mirror talking back to him, echoing the words _you don’t deserve that_ over and over again.

 

**_20.10.7 // 06:18 AM_ **

Jaehyun wakes up again in the morning, feeling strangely refreshed. He doesn’t feel that much weight on his shoulders as he washes his face and puts on his uniform, which is a foreign feeling, but not unwelcomed overall.

He later realizes that he’s slept for four hours straight without waking up, and wonders if it’s got something to do with his midnight sort-of prank caller.

 

**_20.10.7 // 11:43 AM_ **

“Get off, kid,” Jaehyun says, as soon he enters the photocopy room. Mark Lee is leaning against the machine, reviewing pages of clipped paper, his glasses sliding down his nose while he reads. He’s got one hand inside of his lab coat, lips pursed in deep thought, and nobody would know from the very first glance that he’s barely past twenty.

“Hi, hyung!” Mark exclaims, looking up with a grin plastered on his face.

It’s been almost three years and Mark still has that uncomplicated excitement painted across of his face whenever he spots Jaehyun. The grown-up façade fades, and he turns right back into a child. Jaehyun smiles back at him, pushing the boy out of the way and shucks in his own papers, before turning on the machine.

The great thing about Mark is, Jaehyun doesn’t have to pretend to be alright in front of him; the younger’s presence seems to have a naturally soothing effect, a welcomed variance in Jaehyun’s otherwise gloomy days. Mark knows about Taeyong, of course – who doesn’t – but he seems to think that Jaehyun’s faring well, or at least in the process of recovery, so he always acts like nothing has ever happened. It has its own advantages on both of them. Mark is spared from the prospect of thinking about sympathetic words and actually saying them out loud (he’s admitted in his early years that he’s good at neither) and Jaeyun is saved from the usual and frankly tiresome worried looks thrown his way. Mark is one of the reasons Jaehyun is always looking forward to morning shifts lately, even though night shifts allow him more time and privacy to brood.

“How’ve you been?” Mark asks gleefully, putting his chin on Jaehyun’s shoulder as he copies his monthly medical reports. Truly a child. Papers are sliding out cleanly and Jaehyun plucks them away, before setting in more papers. “Haven’t seen you in forever,” Mark adds again.

“That’s because they always put me on night shifts,” Jaehyun says. “That’s what you’ll get after a year of working here. Lucky you, newbie.”

“Looking forward to it,” Mark says, getting himself off Jaehyun like a peeling Band-Aid, or a snake changing skin. “As long as I don’t start seeing ghosts.”

“Ah, you won’t just see them, you’ll befriend them.”

(It’s a goddamn hospital, what does he expect? From many night shifts Jaehyun’s endured during his last one and a half year working here, he has at least seen blurs of dark shadows passing the empty hallway from his peripheral vision a couple times per hour. He’s grown used to it – people die everyday in the hospital, anyway. At least he isn’t in charge of the morgue.)

Mark shudders. “Don’t give them ideas, please.”

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Jaehyun asks, shoving Mark again, now toward the door. “It’s barely lunch break, who are you running away from?”

Jaehyun doesn’t really put thoughts to what he’s saying, but he seems to have hit the mark there (pun fully intended). Mark stutters on his own words and almost drops his clipped paper. “I’m not running away from anyone,” he then declares, but not before he nearly bit down on his own tongue. A 21-year-old aspiring chemist, running away from a coworker at work, and nearly bit off his own tongue due to nervousness of getting caught – really, no one else but Mark Lee can do it.

“Yeah?” Jaehyun says, grinning and looking back at him. Cute, really. “Not even from, what’s his name? Donghyuck something?”

“He has nothing to do with me being here, obviously,” Mark quickly defends himself, fingers folding the corners of his paper until they crease. The way he says it just assure Jaehyun that it’s exactly why he’s here way before lunch.

“Okay then,” Jaehyun says, after his papers are done copying and he jams them all back in the folder. He makes way past Mark, and stops at the door to say at him, “Let me drop by the blood lab real quick and see what this Donghyuck really looks like. I want to see the guy who gets the great Mark Lee all worked up like this.”

“Don’t you dare!” Mark yelps, scrambling after Jaehyun out of the photocopy room while the older just laughs and runs, already out of reach due to his head start.

(He didn’t mean that, of course, but now he really wants to see Donghyuck.)

 

**_20.10.7 // 12:57 PM_ **

Jaehyun really wants to see Mark again at lunch, already craving the younger’s comforting company, maybe take him out for food and take a peek of this Donghyuck person that he’s so afraid of, but the boy’s so busy running blood tests that Jaehyun doesn’t want to disturb him. Maybe he’ll buy him Burger King and leave it on his desk for later or something, since a busy Mark means a postponed eating schedule.

He’s similar to Taeyong that way.

Jaehyun takes a walk to the nearest mall – only a block away – and bought some food for Mark, before going back to the hospital and leave it in his open backpack in the locker room. While he’s closing the door, Jaehyun notices that the locker next to Mark’s belongs to someone named Lee Donghyuck, and Jaehyun smiles.

 

**_20.10.7 // 14:17 PM_ **

He finishes his shift at a quarter past two, and changes out of his uniform without thinking about anything else. Mark hasn’t finished his work yet, so Jaehyun goes straight home.

While he’s waiting for the train, earphones plugged in his ears blasting loud pop music he doesn’t even like, he looks down and opens the call log for no reason. The private number is still on top of his list, taunting him. Out of curiosity, Jaehyun tries to press on it, but nothing happens. He presses again, but his finger only thuds harmlessly against the call button.

 _Last night’s call lasted around 5 minutes at most_ , he thinks. _Is there a time limit to this thing?_

He can’t call the private number right now, but he can edit it, apparently. For a minute, Jaehyun just stands there, lost in thought, his thumb hovering over his keyboard. He doesn’t know what to name his midnight caller – which reminds him, maybe he has to ask for his name later. Before he can decide for a stupid temporary name, just so he can refer to him as something other than “midnight sort-of prank caller”, the train arrives and he has to shove his phone back in his pocket.

In the middle of his ride home, he blankly sets an alarm for 11:55 PM.

**_20.10.7 // 20:49 PM_ **

Mark texts him later at night: _Thanks for the food, hyung!_ – with a little heart sign after the exclamation mark (again, pun fully intended).

 

**_20.10.7 // 23:52 PM_ **

Jaehyun wakes himself up again before midnight, now three minutes before his designated alarm time. Jaehyun wonders why did he even bother to set it when his body seems to correspond so well to the midnight peculiarity and has developed a built-in alarm or something.

 _It has only been three days_ , Jaehyun thinks, looking at his phone, which is now laying atop of his pillow silently. _I’m getting used to this way too quick._ The only reasonable explanation to this is just that everything in his life has just been going so badly that he’s desperately grasping for anything, everything distractive, no matter how impossible or freaky it is.

The moment it vibrates, Jaehyun has already had it inside of his grip.

“Who were you trying to call again at this time?” Jaehyun asks, dropping himself back toward the bed and shifts around to get to the coolest surface of the sheets. He’s putting the call on speaker again, even though he might not need to yell again.

“Uh,” the guy says. “Here’s another odd thing for you: I wasn’t trying to call anyone. My phone just called you on its own. Call me crazy or anything – call _us_ crazy – but it just happened, right in front of my fucking eyes.”

Jaehyun pauses, looking straight at the opposite wall. His mind seems to be working so slow, like a machine that hasn’t been oiled for a long time. He doesn’t know why he’s so dumbfounded by this since the whole event in itself is already so overwhelming.

“If I could believe you the first time, I guess I can believe you this time, too,” Jaehyun finally says. He clears his throat. “What time is it over there?”

“Still 2 in the afternoon. Well, to be precise it’s 13:44 PM. It’s always 13:44 PM.”

“Eh, that’s really weird. Let’s think about this.”

“Sure.”

“So the last two afternoons, at 13:44, you were trying to call a friend,” Jaehyun begins. “And got connected to me instead.”

“Right.”

“And also now, on the current 13:44, you weren’t trying to call anyone but your phone did anyway and again, you ended up calling me.”

“Couldn’t have said it better.”

“This whole thing is so unbelievable,” Jaehyun says, rolling onto his back and sets his gaze to the ceiling. He reaches out a hand – of course he can’t reach the ceiling – but feeling the weight of his own flesh helps him understand that the whole thing is indeed weird, but very much _real_. “If it’s a glitch, what the hell kind of glitch is this?”

“I don’t know,” the guy says, and Jaehyun imagines that he’s shrugging now, though he doesn’t even know what the other person looks like. “The timing seems a bit off to me, though. Like there’s something distinct in it, but I don’t know what it is. I mean, it’s so specific. 13:44 on the dot, every day.”

“Oh yeah, now that you mentioned it,” Jaehyun says. “It is specific. Here, too. It’s always midnight, never later, never earlier.”

“Right? Do you get what I’m saying?” There’s a short, nervous laugh shared between them and Jaehyun suddenly remembers that he hasn’t asked the guy his name just yet.

“By the way, I tried calling you this afternoon but I couldn’t,” Jaehyun tells him. “The call button just wouldn’t work. Weird, right? But I can edit your contact information, so tell me your name.”

“Why were you trying to call me, anyway?” the guy asked. “Is there something wrong? D’you need me for something, maybe?”

“Nothing of sort, I was just curious.”

“Ah. It’s Jaehyun, by the way.”

“Okay, Jae—what?”

“It’s Jaehyun.”

A long, heavy silence ensues.

Jaehyun – the Jaehyun that receives freak phone calls at midnight – just stays still, frozen in time, from every strand of hair to his fingertips to his toes. His skin is cold, so cold and arctic, but his chest is hot like forest fire. He stares at his phone now, at the 3 minutes something ongoing call from this… this mysterious guy… who is also, _coincidentally_ , named Jaehyun.

“J-Jaehyun, you said?” Jaehyun has never stuttered all his life, but maybe just this once he could break out of his streak. “Jaehyun?”

“Yeah, it’s Jaehyun,” the other Jaehyun says, seemingly confused that this Jaehyun sounds so disconcerted by the revelation. “Jung Jaehyun.”

And oh, how quick Jaehyun flips over himself off the bed just then and stands right straight, all traces of sleep vanishing in an instant. Still holding the phone in his now-trembling hand, he turns and looks at his fading reflection in the bathroom sink mirror. His face is pale, like a ghost, or maybe a corpse, and he wonders if the person at the other end of the line looks exactly just like this, only brighter and unaware of this atrocity. Yet.

Then he remembers yesterday’s dream: _you don’t deserve that._ His own reflection, his own face, speaking with his own mouth and in his own voice. _You don’t deserve that. You don’t deserve that. You don’t deserve—_

His stomach churns. No, no, no. There’s a limit of how much tolerance he can emit to deal with exceptionally unbelievable things, something bordering on fantasy like this. There can’t be this much strange things happening at once – it could seriously mess him up, and he’s messed up enough as he is now. He doesn’t need this… this new jarring addition that maybe – he’s not gonna say it, he’s fucking not.

It’s all got to be coincidence. It’s all got to be fucking coincidence.

“Where do you live? What’s your job?” Jaehyun’s questions are fired quick and firm like bullets. “How old are you?”

“Whoa, slow down,” the other Jaehyun says. He sounds so stunned that Jaehyun has suddenly turned from a lighthearted guy to a really panicky worrywart. Well, he has a reason to. “What’s wrong with you? I live in Korea. I have no fixed job yet since I’m a college student, but I’m currently considering taking part-time jobs. I’m twenty one years old.”

“I—I,” Jaehyun says, and he’s at loss at word, mouth arid, mind slowing down into a stop. “What do you study?”

“Nursery,” the other Jaehyun replies. “It’s Surgical Nursing to be exact but—“

“Oh, Jesus,” Jaehyun says, closing his eyes. “Oh, no. You don’t happen to know people named Johnny Seo and Moon Taeil and Mark Lee, don’t you?”

“I… How do you know my friends?”

 _Ah_ , Jaehyun thinks, heart sinking down lower inside of his chest. _Ah, this can’t be happening. I can’t be talking to myself. I **can’t**._

But it’s really, really happening and Jaehyun can’t run away from it no matter how much he wants to, because his feet are glued so firmly on the floor and his hand to his phone. If things are really happening, his other self is standing on the opposite end of the line.

“ _Jaehyun_ ,” Jaehyun says, after he’s collected back his scattered composure, and damn does it feel weird that he’s calling out his own name in this tone that he uses whenever he’s comforting a patient’s family member in the ICU. “Jaehyun, what… what year is it?”

“Year?” the other Jaehyun says, pausing for awhile. “It’s 2018, isn’t it?”

Jaehyun’s eyes flick to the date on top of his phone screen. Well, he’s fucked – the whole ordeal is real. The whole fucking ordeal is very much real.

“You sure…” Jaehyun says, slowly and carefully, his own heart beating hard inside of his ribcages. “You sure it’s 2018? Not another year?”

“No, it’s 2018. I’m sure. I just enrolled here,” the other Jaehyun states, his tone firm. “Why are you so agitated all of the sudden? And how do you know my friends?”

“Ah, God,” Jaehyun says. He can marvel about his stupid, stupid luck later – the luck that’s attracted this unlikely, impossible anomaly which doesn’t even make sense in the slightest – but right now he has to break this down to his younger self, to his fledgling counterpart. “Ah, this is unbelievable. So fucking unbelievable.”

“What _is?_ ” he demands impatiently. “Our time’s almost up, man, unless you start spilling up quickly—“

“Hey, Jaehyun,” Jaehyun says, heaving a deep breath as he does so. “Strange, I think you’ve been talking to yourself this whole time.”


	2. nagasaki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe life is trying to tell him that he needs to give his heart a break from all those goddamn ache and starts ressurecting his brain to actually mull over the occurrence. That’s the least fantastical theory Jaehyun has currently, in response to him actually talking to Jaehyun of the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> henlo please have this word vomit!! chaptered works are an absolute torture idk how people do it send help T_T

_“Feelings, and feelings, and feelings. Let me try thinking instead.”_

**— C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed**

 

**_18.3.20 // 13:58 PM_ **

“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” was Mark’s first words at him, when he seated himself down next to him in his study desk, still in a trance.

 _I mean_ , Jaehyun thought, _you’re not wrong, not exactly._

“I just _heard_ a ghost,” Jaehyun said to Mark, who had now returned his focus back to the papers in his hands. He was an aspiring chemist, so he had to study hard. Harder than Taeil and his mental disorders study, and definitely harder than Jaehyun memorizing the correct dosage of sedative to use in a surgery as to not accidentally kill a patient. “Not saw, but heard.”

“Whaaaat? That’s weird,” Mark commented, in his usual peculiar American-Korean accent. It was always endearing to hear him talk, though Jaehyun would never tell him this. Not anytime soon, anyway. “Tell me about it, hyung.”

“You sure? You seem busy,” Jaehyun said, nodding at Mark’s papers, and then another pile laid on top of his backpack. Mark grinned.

“Ah, yeah, well,” he said sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck, “I am, but I still want to hear your story. I mean, you look really upset, hyung.”

Did he, really? Jaehyun hadn’t noticed. Maybe he wasn’t as good at hiding his emotions as he thought he was. But to be fair, he really just discovered a mind-blowing phenomenon in himself. Quite literally too, at that, with a great emphasis in the word _himself_.

There was plainly another him out there. Another Jung Jaehyun from another time, older than him by a couple of years, and an operational surgical nurse. Maybe it wasn’t that easy to suppress what he was feeling right then. Maybe it was reasonable that he let some distress slip out.

“We can save it for later,” he said. “Who am I here for again?”

“Me,” Mark replied immediately, the grin back to his face. “Always me.”

“That’s right, because you can’t read hangul for shit.”

Mark whined, “But I can _read_ them just fine! I just – I can’t really spell.”

“How long have you been here again?”

“Five… five months now.”

“And how have you survived the last four months without speaking Korean at all?”

“Hey, this is an international institution! Everyone speaks English. Or at least basic English. And I’m speaking to _you_ now, am I not?”

“Your grammar is still a bit—“ Jaehyun began, smiling, but Mark hit his shoulder with the back of his hand.

“Hyung, seriously. Just spell-check my work and stop dissing me.”

“Alright, alright.”

 

**_18.3.20 // 14:14 PM_ **

It was considerably harder to spell-check Mark’s work (a duty he’s taken since the boy transferred from Canada last November) when Jaehyun’s mind kept lurching back to the fact that he had just talked to a future counterpart of himself every few seconds or so. He’d nearly missed a couple of misspells. Or maybe it was ten misspells. Fifteen. He couldn’t really think straight.

“Why don’t you just take Korean classes?” Jaehyun asked, when he put down Mark’s papers and rubbed his eyelids. He wasn’t even halfway done. “They’ll probably do you more good than going to me every damn weekend, kid.”

“My mom said I didn’t need them,” Mark said. “Why? Do _you_ think I need them?”

“I don’t think you need them per se, I just think it’ll help you a lot.”

Mark paused. He looked concerned. “Am I troubling you with this?”

“What? No,” Jaehyun immediately said, flicking the papers against Mark’s arm. “No, Mark, I don’t feel troubled at all. It’s just, I’m not a professional translator. Or spell-checker, in your case.”

“That hasn’t stopped you before,” Mark said again, and Jaehyun closed his eyes and sighed because the kid was right. “There’s just something wrong with you today, right? That’s why you’re so out of character?”

“Am I?” Jaehyun asked idly. “Am I… out of character?”

“Yeah, kinda. Is it the ghost? Do you want to talk about it?”

For a second there, Jaehyun stared right into Mark’s big ass eyes. Mark – lovely, dumb as hell Mark – whose face was just the color of concerned curiosity. Jaehyun was just so tempted to tell him, really, so damn tempted (“Listen, I’ve been talking to my future self – my literal future self, mind you – for the last couple of days, what do you think?”) but he was afraid that Mark might not believe him. Frankly, if the situation was turned and Mark suddenly spouted some freak shit like that to him, he wouldn’t believe him, too. It was common sense, as Taeil would like to put it.

“No?” Mark asked, sounding a little bit dejected as Jaehyun kept quiet, and scratched the back of his neck.

“It’s a stupid story, anyway, you’re not missing out much.”

“Aw, hyung.”

Jaehyun would probably say something else to comfort Mark, assure the kid that he really wasn’t missing anything large – even though he did – but at that time, someone sat down on the empty chair across of the both of them and Jaehyun’s attention on Mark switched off almost automatically.

“Hi,” Taeyong said, looking straight at Jaehyun, though he glanced at Mark and offered the kid a small smile. Mark gawped at Taeyong, open-mouthed.

Jaehyun nearly choked on his own spit but he tried not to stutter when he said back, “Hey.”

“Why are you here again?” Taeyong knowingly asked, leaning back on his chair and took out a couple of notebooks from his bag. “From what I know, the library isn’t Jung Jaehyun’s favorite hangout place, like, ever.”

Mark turned to look at Jaehyun, and then back to Taeyong, as if he was desperately trying to connect the dots of how Jaehyun (questionably handsome) could know someone like Taeyong (impossibly handsome).

Jaehyun scratched the back of his neck so hard he swore his nails hit the back of his throat. He tried to drown the pain with a grin. “Maybe I’ve changed, what would you know?”

“Nothing exactly,” Taeyong replied. He looked at Mark again. “Is this your brother?”

Mark, still gawping at Taeyong, finally closed his mouth only to open it a couple seconds later to stutter. “Uh, I’m—“

“—not my brother, obviously. We don’t even look alike,” Jaehyun finished quickly, gesturing at Mark’s face and then his own. Taeyong’s smile widened, almost amused. “Look. He’s blond. I am black-haired. He’s tan, I am pale. He’s Canadian, I am Korean.”

“ _But_ _I am Korean_ ,” Mark gasped.

“Shut up, Mark Lee.”

Taeyong chuckled. “Not by blood, I see.”

“What does that even mean?” Jaehyun asked, but Taeyong didn’t really give an answer, just smiling back at Jaehyun (and Mark). He started opening his notes.

Mark suddenly grabbed Jaehyun by the arm while Jaehyun was busy staring at Taeyong (who was doing such a good fucking job looking good while reading a goddamn notes), startling him. The younger mouthed, “What the hell,” and Jaehyun frowned at him, pulling his arm away from Mark’s grip.

“What,” he mouthed back.

“Who is he,” Mark was still mouthing his words, totally silent, but Jaehyun glanced at Taeyong just to be sure he wasn’t noticing them talking about his (pretty) ass right in front of his fucking eyes (though not quite literally).

“My friend.”

“And since when do you have… like, godlike friends?”

Jaehyun secretly agreed, so much that it had got to be unhealthy, but he rolled his eyes. “You’re overreacting,” he said, but due to his stupidity he actually said this out loud. Taeyong looked up from his notes and stared right at him. Jaehyun cursed at himself inwardly.

“Uh, I was talking to Mark,” he sheepishly said, and Taeyong made another ‘o’ with his mouth, before smiling and shifting his attention back to his work. Jaehyun elbowed Mark and glared at him, although it was technically _his_ fault. Mark chewed on his bottom lip and looked away from him, and Jaehyun most definitely saw him holding back a smile.

Mark ceremoniously stood up and went away after awhile, mumbling a vague “I need a book” when Jaehyun knew for a fact that Mark Lee didn’t read book ever unless someone forced him to. Jaehyun watched as Mark disappeared between the shelves, effectively leaving him alone with Taeyong in that goddamn square table.

Jaehyun wondered if hiding under the table for no apparent reason would be considered weird.

He began scratching his wrist (because the skin on the back of his neck was still burning), stealing short glances at Taeyong every now and then. He then noticed that there was a few noticeably lighter strands on Taeyong’s hair, like he was testing a color dye or something. Those strands… they were white. Fucking white.

Before Jaehyun could hold himself back, he blurted out, “What happened to your hair?”

Taeyong calmly looked up. “Oh? The white ones? I was testing a hair dye.”

Oh. Spot-on, then.

“You’re gonna dye your hair… white?”

“Yeah,” Taeyong said, reaching out one hand to pull on his few white strands. The look on his face was something like pride. “Doyoungie said it’s gonna look so cool, and he’s rarely wrong, so, yes. I’m dying my hair white.”

“Oh,” Jaehyun said, a little dumbly. “Oh, alright.”

“What? Is white that scandalous of a color?” Taeyong asked, his eyes wrinkling in a teasing way. Jaehyun was speechless. Was this guy really the guy that thought _Jaehyun_ had hated him? He really didn’t show it, if it was true.

Jaehyun gained back his self-control pretty quick despite everything, and he cleared his throat. “It is kinda… unconventional, but I doubt any color would ever look scandalous on you.”

There was a pause. Then he thought, _oh god_. Jaehyun just realized what catastrophe he’d said when the look on Taeyong’s face shifted  considerably; the teasing gaze was gone, exchanged with surprise. Jaehyun clapped his hand over his mouth, eyes widening in horror.

“Shit, I didn’t mean that!” he said, but Jesus, that sounded even more wrong than before. “No, wait, I kinda did, but also I did not mean it in a weird way, I swear—“

“Jaehyun,” Taeyong cut him off. “You’re cute, you know that?”

That excellently shut Jaehyun up for good.

 

**_18.3.20 // 16:37 PM_ **

When Jaehyun walked home that evening, he didn’t know which matter was more important to think about: the fact that there was seriously another him out there, or the fact that Taeyong called him cute.

The first matter was more pressing, of course. He knew from the second time his phone suddenly called on that strange number again that his life would possibly get harder from the on; especially now, since that stranger turned out to be not so much of a stranger. He knew he should think about it more – about the whole wonder of the occurrence, about why the hell would it happen in the first place, and why did it have to happen to _him_ , of all people. Yet it was hard to think about future Jaehyun’s dramatically sarcastic voice (“Hey, Jaehyun. Strange, I think you’ve been talking to yourself this whole time.”) when Taeyong’s smile was still so fresh on the front of his brain, the words “You’re cute, you know that?” rolling off his tongue like sweet poison. Sweet, sweet poison, because it made Jaehyun feel so pleasurably sick on the inside.

It was equally as confounding as Jaehyun’s other self talking to him from the future.

But he couldn’t afford to let neither Taeyong’s words nor the phenomenon overwhelm him for too long when he finally got home, even if he wanted to. Works were piling up and deadlines were closing in – many things that Jaehyun had deliberately dallied on because he never felt like doing things unless they were close to hammering his door down.

Kind of weird, really, that when there was so much things happening, Jaehyun felt like he could finally do his works comfortably.

 

**_18.3.20 // 19:02 PM_ **

The comfort ended when the work did. Once he closed his laptop, Jaehyun’s mind was all over the place again. _Which is reasonable_ , Jaehyun reminded himself, _since_ _it is really something fuss about_. It would be creepy if he didn’t fuss about it at all, even.

There was another Jaehyun – another him – from the future. Not just any future, at that, too; it was another him from two years to come. In 2020. A surgical nurse Jaehyun. He’d gotten a job that he was studying for (at least that one’s a relief). Jaehyun leaned back on his chair, and wondered why he wasn’t as flabbergasted as he was supposed to, encountering something as impossible and mystic as this whole freak call was. The astonishment was there, of course, sitting there at the center of his mind, but it wasn’t weighing him down or anything. It was just… _there_. Like he was already adapting to the fact that his phone was probably a fucking supernatural conspiracy device and it would grant him chance to talk to his future counterpart every now and then, all for no apparent reason.

The other Jaehyun from 2020, he didn’t seem to take this as well as the current Jaehyun did. He sounded so panicked, so lost and bewildered by the revelation that Jaehyun was starting to pity him at first. He thought he (the future Jaehyun) was just so disturbed by the grieving that he started talking rubbish, spewing off words like _this can’t be happening_ and _oh god_ and _I’m you from the future, how fucking remarkable/weird is that_ , but turned out he was actually spewing off the truth. A very impossible truth, but the truth, nevertheless.

Probably the reason why Jaehyun was pretty calm with this now was because he nearly exploded earlier.

“What do you mean I’m talking to myself?” Jaehyun had said then, his fingers suddenly sweaty and slippery against the smooth surface of his phone (he left the case back at home; he’d probably regret it later). “Can you be more—are you okay? Are you drunk?”

“No. No! No, I’m not drunk! Who would get drunk at midnight—wait that’s actually a pretty realistic thing but—“ the man on the phone made a frustrated sound before continuing. “I’m also Jaehyun. Jung Jaehyun, twenty-three. I’m a surgical nurse. In the year of 2020. So you are the me… studying SN… in Seoul… from two years ago.”

There was such a long pause accompanying that inconceivable exposé that Jaehyun was afraid the call would end before he could find his voice again.

“Hello, Jaehyun?”

“I’m… I’m what?”

“You are the me studying—“

“No, I got that part quite okay. I mean… _what?_ ”

“I mean,” The future Jaehyun (allegedly), obviously trying to keep his composure. “I mean, as impossible as this sounds, it’s currently happening. So. You have no choice but to believe this.”

“Are you… are you really sure?” Jaehyun asked again (his phone nearly slipped from his hand this time and he cursed). “Are you really, really, really fucking sure I’m you and you’re me? We could just… I don’t know, share the same name? Totally coincidentally?”

“And share the same friends, major, and interests, too? What a great coincidence.”

Jaehyun was once again speechless. His mind stopped working.

“When’s my birthday—“ he began, but already the other Jaehyun had cut him off.

“The day you hate most.”

“I didn’t know I hate Christmas that much.”

“No, that’s your _second_ most hated day. I was talking about Valentine’s day, you dumbass nurse to-be.”

“I—you just called yourself a dumbass, dumbass.”

Jaehyun had a real nasty feeling that the other Jaehyun was shrugging. He had another nasty feeling that his previous nasty feeling was very much accurate, as well.

“In my era, everyone hates themselves,” Future Jaehyun said. “It’s like a really fucked up trend. And I’ll have you know that ‘dumbass’ is the mildest insult I’ve ever aimed at myself these days, you can shut the hell up.”

Jaehyun – the one in 2018 – actually laughed out loud. Well, at least this kind of self-deprecative jokes was so _his_ style, it actually helped convincing him, even for just a bit. Just a tiny bit.

“Okay,” he said, after heaving a sigh, letting more air in. Maybe he needed a break to think about this. Mark was waiting for him inside and he was sure he couldn’t talk to the boy with fucking wonder painted on his face and skin. “Okay, say that you are really the me from the future…”

“I am. I am, I think.”

“You think?” Jaehyun muttered. “Say that this is all true. That we’re the same person from a different time. _Why_ is this happening to us, to Jung Jaehyun, in particular?”

There was a long pause. It was so long that 2018 Jaehyun checked on the big ass clock on the wall to see how long had it been since the call started. They had only half a minute left, at best, and they still had so many things to address, it wouldn’t do if they just kept being silent out of shock.

“I think we need to think about this more,” he finally said, when Future Jaehyun still hadn’t talked. “I think we need to talk about this more.”

“I think this whole thing is fucked up,” Future Jaehyun replied. “I think this is a dream, and when I wake up, I’ll just be one crazy man. This might never happened at all.”

Jaehyun had another strange, tugging feeling inside of him, telling him that Future Jaehyun didn’t mean that one sentence – at all. Both of them knew it wasn’t a dream. It was so outlandish that it was real, if anything. Jaehyun had even pinched himself a couple of times since the revelation, and the other Jaehyun probably did, too.

Another pause. Jaehyun looked at the clock again. A few more seconds.

“There’s gotta be a reason as to why this is happening,” he concluded. “That’s like, the number one basic rule of the universe. There’s always a reason for everything, no matter how fucked up it looks at first.”

Future Jaehyun snorted. “Who taught you that?”

“I read,” Jaehyun said. He did read that line from one of the books he’d borrowed under Taeyong’s name a few days back. (He still didn’t like reading, but what else was he supposed to do with the books? He’d do Taeyong’s kindness dirty if he just left the book to dust on top of his desk.) “I borrowed a couple of books from the library.” _For you, though accidentally,_ he wanted to add, but didn’t.

“You _what?_ ” Future Jaehyun sounded so astonished, but Jaehyun didn’t blame him. He still didn’t like reading that much, so the future him must be the same. It crossed his mind that maybe, just maybe, when Future Jaehyun was in _this_ timeline, he didn’t read at all. Maybe he did things that Jaehyun didn’t and didn’t do things that Jaehyun did. Wasn’t there a theory about that kind of timeline-altering somewhere?

Jaehyun would respond with an equally sarcastic retort, but the phone call ended then with a sharp click. He turned to look blankly at the number 5:02 written on the screen – 5 minutes, 2 seconds. Another weird set of numbers.

(Jaehyun tried to delete the number right after the call ended, but his phone wouldn’t let him. The delete button wouldn’t work even if he tapped it so furiously, the same way the end button wouldn’t work when the call was happening. He could edit the name, though, so he settled on naming his future him “2020 Moi”.)

Considering he took around ten minutes just staring at the ground after that, he guessed his composure coming back now would be reasonable.

 

**_18.3.20 // 19:17 PM_ **

Jaehyun took one of the library books he was reading from the bedside table and went to the last page he’d read, with the folded corner. He remembered what he’d told Future Jaehyun – “there’s always a reason for everything” – and wondered if it was rather out of line, since, if he remembered correctly, his future self had recently lost a boyfriend to death, and he’d said a line straight out of a grieving book.

That was actually another something that had been occupying Jaehyun’s mind for awhile now. He’d gotten himself a man and lost him in the short span of two years? Remarkably disturbing. Aside from the near impossible chance of Jaehyun actually getting laid (moreover getting laid by a potential long-term partner), the subsequent dying part was much, much heavier. Harder to swallow. Much harder to digest. Even if he didn’t know details, didn’t even know who or when or how, it made his chest hurt so greatly whenever he thought about it. Which was justified since it was literally _him_ who was hurting, though two years away from now.

 _Say_ , Jaehyun suddenly thought, mind much more interested in the painful yet curious thought of him losing someone to death much more than reading the book in his hands, _if I do something now, will things change in the future? Won’t I be able to keep… whoever it is that I’ll be dating alive?_

Some of the cool ache in his chest subsided slowly at the thought. It was sluggishly melting down to his toes, giving him some room to breathe in relief. That had to be true. That _had_ to be. He could change things, maybe, and even if he couldn’t do big things due to his lack of knowledge, he could help. If he could save what little things left that might make him much happier than he was now, he would. Probably. He’d definitely try.

Also, about that lack of knowledge – he could fix that. He just needed to wait for the next 13:44 to come.

 

**_18.3.20 // 19:29 PM_ **

Jaehyun ended up falling asleep after awhile with the book under his arm, creasing more pages as he shifted around. It was the most restless he’d gotten ever since he found that Taeyong thought Jaehyun hated him.

He later dreamt of his own reflection in the mirror staring back at him with cold eyes and pale lips and empty face. Just like a corpse.

 

**_18.3.21 // 07:33 AM_ **

Jaehyun slept in.

He slept in, woke up ten minutes after his morning class was supposed to start, with eleven missed calls from Johnny and a shitton of messages in his inbox while he stumbled around in the bathroom. He skimmed through them as he shuffled down the stairs, no breakfast, no coffee, shoelaces not yet tied properly and one of his jacket sleeves still flapping behind him, and his fly wasn’t probably up yet (he did check later, before he entered the subway, and yes, it was up). The ride was short but felt longer, and halfway through Jaehyun thought he’d never make it anyway, so he slumped down the seat and texted Johnny: “i’m ditching”, which the latter replied to not even a minute after.

 

 **Yonghoe** : yea that’s what i thought, bitch ass

 **YoooNOhs:** that bitch ass was so uncalled for yo

 **Yonghoe:** if i can wake up at 7 every thurs for this class then u could obv do better

 **Yonghoe:** which u didn’t

 **Yonghoe:** hence, bitch ass

 

If Jaehyun wasn’t actually so burdened by the sleep still hanging on the lids of his eyes, he would’ve had a good laugh out of that. He didn’t, since the sleep was still hanging on the lids of his eyes, and he was really so close to nod off again there in the train.

 

 **Yonghoe:** did u even sleep thou

 **YoooNOhs:** yea I did, why?

 **Yonghoe:** o, i thought u were pulling an all nighter

 **YoooNOhs:** I never pyll all nighter

 **YooNOhs:** pull* shit

 **Yonghoe:** well u def sound like u did

 **Yonghoe:** TYPOOO lmaooooooooo go back to death

 **YoooNOhs:** i hope seulgi confiscate your bitch ass phone

 **Yonghoe:** seulgi loves me also this isn’t high school

 

Jaehyun snorted and shoved his phone back to his pocket. Since he’d be late to class anyway, might just ditch the whole thing. Johnny could survive a day (not even a day, just two hours) without him. And Jaehyun could probably go back to the library. Return the books while Taeyong wasn’t there so he wouldn’t know Jaehyun was never interested to borrow them in the first place.

(Jaehyun had developed this weird habit of bringing those two books wherever he went after he borrowed it last week, for no apparent reason. Put them in his bag in the morning, place them on his desk at night. He didn’t read them – would probably just take them out by turn and skim over the pages – but he’d bring them. Even after he knew he’d lose a lover in the future, he still didn’t read them.)

 

 

**_18.3.21 // 07:57 AM_ **

As he’d expected, the library was empty when Jaehyun arrived. The windows weren’t even opened yet. Who had enough free time to visit the library at 8 AM on a plain boring Thursday, anyway?

(Someone did, but that’s for later.)

Doyoung was on duty when Jaehyun came in, shrugging the wet patch of grass off the brim of his sneakers on the welcome mat before he did. From the look of it, he had also just arrived – he was folding his coat, his bag still unopened on the upper desk, and his hair a bit messy from the wind. He looked up and caught Jaehyun’s eye, a look of slight surprise on his face.

Jaehyun cleared his throat. “Um. Hi.”

“Hello,” Doyoung greeted back in his smooth voice. He smiled a little tentatively, expression polite. He looked rather dazed that someone showed up this early, probably barely after him. “What’s up?”

“I’m here to return some books.”

There was a short pause as Doyoung dragged his bag down the desk onto the floor, almost knocking a plastic cup down as he did. “Sure,” he finally said. “Let me see them.”

Jaehyun walked closer and pulled out the books from his bag. Doyoung handled them with skilled hands and wrote something down in the librarian’s big ass book, before checking something on the list.

“You borrowed these under Taeyong’s name, right?” Doyoung asked, after he checked the card glued on the back of the book.

“Yeah.”

“I need to renew his library card, he’s borrowed too much,” Doyoung said with a sigh, and Jaehyun felt a smile forming on his lips as Doyoung busied himself with the papers. A useless information, but it was nice to know that.

“He’s here often?”

Doyoung made a vague disgruntled voice. “Guy _lives_ here.”

“Does he, really?”

“Basically, yeah. Always here whether I’m working or not. Sometimes even earlier than us part-timers. Makes me wonder why he doesn’t just work here if he loves this place so much.”

“Because I don’t have the time to, that’s why,” Taeyong suddenly said, sliding next to Doyoung on the empty chair behind the desk with a bunch of books under his arms. “Morning, Jaehyun,” he said, throwing a glance at him, Jaehyun’s mouth agape at his sudden appearance. And it wasn’t just that – Taeyong’s hair was completely white. White, like snow, like the vanilla ice cream he would eat with Johnny after lunch, like—

“Doyoung, I want these checked out,” the newly white-haired Taeyong said. “Also, you shouldn’t talk shit about me while I’m literally just back there, I could hear every word.”

“I _know_ , ass,” Doyoung said, rolling his eyes, but he took Taeyong’s books and grumbled while he wrote each of the titles down. “You’re the reason why I have to restock card papers every month when we could do that at least twice a year.”

“You’re overreacting,” Taeyong commented. “Just give me the books, I need them for my paper.”

Doyoung let out another sigh. “Always your paper, never anything else. How about caring for me once? Give me less work?”

“You can care for yourself just fine,” Taeyong simply said, taking the books under his arms as soon as Doyoung was done with them. Jaehyun was still too busy staring at Taeyong’s face, too astonished by the way the whiteness of his hair complemented his skin color so well that he could barely register their conversation. “Also, you get good money out of sorting books here. Don’t whine too much.”

“Well, my whining is justified!” Doyoung exclaimed after him, Taeyong laughing as he went away to one of the study tables. When Taeyong had settled down on a table quite far away from the administration desk, Jaehyun closed his mouth, narrowed his eyes, and turned to Doyoung.

“He came here _before_ you?”

“He sure did,” Doyoung replied, half-snorting, half-laughing. “As I’ve said, it’s a normal thing. We gave him one of our spare keys, but if he gets caught loitering around at 4 AM here just because he’s a damn insomniac, he’s on his own.”

“He’s an insomniac?”

“Probably the worst offender in the whole campus ground. He doesn’t sleep.”

“ _He doesn’t sleep—_ “

“I can hear you, you know,” Taeyong called out from his seat on the furthest table. “Jaehyun, if you want to know more about me, you should ask me yourself, not that sorry piece of a subjective stickman over there.”

“Have you _never_ looked at yourself?” Doyoung shot out, standing from his seat to yell at Taeyong. “At least I eat proper meals thrice a day, dumbass!”

“I’m so obviously a smartass,” Taeyong replied, and Doyoung grunted, before retreating back down to his seat. Leaving a still-grumbling Doyoung, Jaehyun opt to take Taeyong’s offer and sat down on the seat across of his. Taeyong didn’t glance up from the book he was reading.

“Do you not sleep for real?” Jaehyun asked, when Taeyong still didn’t say anything post his sort-of argument with Doyoung. Jaehyun had a feeling it happened often when the both of them were the only people in the library (which might be a much more common situation than he’d expect).

Taeyong pursed his lips. “Doyoungie likes to exaggerate. I do sleep. I’m not a vampire.”

(Though he could definitely pass as one, should he be paler.)

“So, you sleep for what, three hours a day?”

Taeyong grinned, baring his teeth. “Close. Try again.”

“Four?” Jaehyun asked tentatively.

“Two.”

“Jesus,” Jaehyun said, wide-eyed and dumbfounded. “That’s got to be so unhealthy.”

Taeyong surprisingly let out a clear, short laugh. “That’s what everyone says.”

“Then why?” Jaehyun asked, still openly dazed by Taeyong’s frankly harmful habit. If it was him, he wouldn’t even be able to imagine living off two hours of sleep everyday. “Are you a coffee addict?”

“Ha! It’s funny. Coffee doesn’t do it for me anymore,” Taeyong said. He looked self-satisfied, for some reason, and Jaehyun was astonished to realize that he didn’t mind the haughty look on Taeyong’s face just now. “I just do. I like working that much, maybe. Also, it’s not entirely bad. I’m bound to stay up all night to do surgeries, anyway. Soon.”

Jaehyun leaned back on his chair even though what he wanted to do was the opposite. What did Taeil say back then in the café? Something about Taeyong’s inability to keep himself well-fed? _He’s going to be a doctor and he can’t even take care of himself._

“You also don’t eat right, I suppose,” Jaehyun commented, glancing down at Taeyong’s skinny arms splayed on top of the table, on top of which his book rested.

“Yeah, how’d you figure it out?” Taeyong said, after pausing for awhile. There was a curious twinkle in his eyes, and he tilted his head a little. More strands of white fell over his straight brows, and Jaehyun was distracted. Then he blinked.

“Doyoung literally just yelled it out a minute ago. Also, Taeil hyung.”

“So you know Taeil,” Taeyong said, and much to Jaehyun’s surprise, he suddenly closed the book he was reading. “But maybe that’s a given since he’s with Youngho.”

The ‘Youngho’ usage actually surprised Jaehyun more than necessary. Johnny didn’t use his Korean name a lot, so Jaehyun wondered if Taeyong and Johnny were really _just_ classmates like the latter had declared years ago if Taeyong could say his name so casually like that. This made his stomach churn because of two things: one, Taeyong could’ve been closer to Johnny than he’d initially thought, and two, not even _Jaehyun_ called Johnny by his Korean name.

Taeyong probably noticed the uneasiness on his face, because he suddenly leaned forward to take a closer look at Jaehyun’s face. “You good?” he asked, voice suddenly soft.

“No,” Jaehyun said. Then he mentally smacked himself on the mouth. “I mean, yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”

Taeyong looked unsatisfied with his dubious answer, but didn’t seem like he’d question him further. “Which reminds me, why are you here this early in the morning?”

Jaehyun nearly stuttered on his own words. “I’m… ditching class.”

Taeyong’s lips crooked up. “Oh, you’re ditching?”

“Yeah. Because I slept in.”

“That’s cool,” Taeyong said, leaning back again and stretching his hands. “I ditched some classes when I was your age, too.”

Jaehyun dared himself to snort out loud. “When you were my age? What are you, forty?”

“Twenty-three, but probably I am that old. Mentally.”

Jaehyun stared at Taeyong’s hair once again. The white threads are reflecting some of the sunlights peeking through the arch windows. “With that color, I say you’d rock your mental age pretty well.”

“Naw, it’s cool, isn’t it?” Taeyong said, smiling. He pointed at his hair. “Took me three hours. It better looks cool.”

“You could’ve used those three hours to sleep instead,” Jaehyun noted. “But yeah. It’s cool. Really cool.”

Nobody could ever rock white hair as breathtakingly as Taeyong did, probably, but Jaehyun didn’t say that out loud. Because he had pride. And manners. And lump in his throat when he saw Taeyong laughing out loud, shapely lips widening so adorably as he threw his head back. And a goddamn pounding heart inside of his fucking chest.

“I’ll have to dye it back black when I graduate, though. No one will hire an odd-haired doctor,” Taeyong continued on, and Jaehyun laughed.

“True that.”

He wondered if Taeyong was always this joyful back when they were still high school students. He wasn’t. Jaehyun was so sure he wasn’t. This wasn’t the Taeyong he knew back then. Or at least, not the Taeyong that Jaehyun saw shuffling around the cafeteria, always inching away from the crowd. Jaehyun remembered a clumsy, standoffish Taeyong, someone he couldn’t talk to because Jaehyun was apparently too much of a coward – one with extreme self-denial, too, at that – to walk up to him and say hello.

So in a way, it wasn’t entirely groundless that Taeyong thought Jaehyun hated him because of that. It wasn’t entirely his fault, either, nor was it Taeyong’s, nor was it a misunderstanding. Jaehyun was a coward and Taeyong limited his interactions with people he didn’t really know. That was just it.

So what had changed, then? Did college do it for him? Did the evenhanded responsibilities and less pressurizing atmosphere do it for him? Or maybe it was his friends? New friends? Who were Taeyong’s friends, other than Doyoung and Taeil? Considering that Jaehyun had never actually seen him outside the library area, he mostly knew nothing about Taeyong’s current social life.

“Your little brother the other day,” Taeyong suddenly said, and Jaehyun was struck out of his own thoughts. “He’s cute. A freshman?”

It took Jaehyun a second to realize that Taeyong was talking about Mark.

“Oh, Mark,” Jaehyun said. “Yeah, he’s a freshman. And he’s not my brother.”

“Not by blood, I said,” Taeyong said. “You have the exact same look on your faces when I dropped by. Confused or something. Why, am I that bewildering?”

Jaehyun looked on at Taeyong’s inquisitive face, wondering if he really meant that question just now or if he was just tricking Jaehyun into telling him what they thought of him. He might be overthinking things, but he decided that being honest every now and then wouldn’t hurt.

“Honestly? Yeah.”

“I am?” Taeyong asked again, now with more disbelief on his face. “Is that why you wouldn’t talk to me back then?”

“Back then?” Jaehyun repeated, though he already had a vague feeling of when was _back then_. He just didn’t expect Taeyong to be straightforward about it this soon, especially not when Jaehyun couldn’t even ask him about that first. “Back then as in, back when we were still in high school?”

“High school.”

“Oh,” Jaehyun said dumbly. He looked at his wrists, questioning if he should also be honest with this one. “Oh, well, yes, I guess. I… was very wary of you back then.”

“That’s funny, didn’t peg you as the distrustful type,” Taeyong commented lightly, and Jaehyun was relieved to hear that he didn’t sound angry or offended. Not that he was the type of person who would get offended easily, anyway. Taeyong was standoffish, but not particularly delicate.

“I’m not saying you looked like someone I couldn’t trust, but that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Jaehyun then said, and he felt like adding a smile to end that theatrically, so he did. Taeyong’s eyebrows quickly shot up, and he grinned.

“I looked like I couldn’t be trusted?” he repeated in more disbelief. “ _Me?_ Couldn’t be trusted? Obviously you need to get glasses, Jung Jaehyun.”

And Jaehyun laughed out loud, knuckles digging into the fabric of his jeans, lowkey regretting why he didn’t just walk up to Taeyong years ago if the guy was this witty. Pretty _and_ witty. A little cheeky, maybe. Smart and diligent, to boot. What else didn’t Taeyong have?

A boyfriend, that was what.

 

**_18.3.21 // 08:28 AM_ **

Jaehyun would love to stay there longer, even if Taeyong got back to his work soon after and Jaehyun pretended to be busy with his phone. It should’ve had been awkward, sitting in silence after talking so profusely just a few moments before, but somehow it wasn’t. Taeyong got one ear plugged with an earphone, the other dangling over his collar, while he was flipping over pages and writing down lines on his own notes. Jaehyun absentmindedly scrolled through his Instagram explore page and prayed to god Taeyong wouldn’t notice it whenever he glanced up to look at him every few seconds or so.

Jaehyun would really, _really_ love to stay there longer, with Taeyong and his lovely quietness, but Johnny had called him as soon as his class (the one that he ditched) ended, and asked him where the hell he was.

“I know you’re here,” Johnny said, as soon as Jaehyun received his call. “Come over soon, we’ve got homeworks.”

“Here, where?”

“On campus, obviously.”

“Okay,” Jaehyun said. “That’s groundless. I could still be at home, enjoying my free morning without you, Seulgi, and ecology studies—“

“Taeyong just texted me where you have been since 8 AM, so don’t even bother,” Johnny said assuredly, and Jaehyun groaned. “Unless you want me to come there to crash your date, you better haul ass.”

“It’s not a date,” Jaehyun said, a little heatedly.

“It kinda is,” Taeyong put in his input from across of the table. He looked up at Jaehyun for a second, doe eyes wide with questionable gleam, then smiled and looked down on his book once more.

Jaehyun wanted to smack his face against the table. And die right after, if possible.

“It _kinda_ is?” Jaehyun repeated, after he promised Johnny he would meet him soon and ended the call. “Do you even know what a date is?”

“Do _you?_ ” Taeyong shot back, and Jaehyun stared at him, speechless, taken aback.

“I sure do,” Jaehyun replied, after he collected back his scattered composure. It must be talent, to be able to always flawlessly throw him off like that. As if Taeyong’s looks couldn’t do that so easily already.

“You sure? Good, you can tell me, then.”

“What?”

Taeyong pulled his earphone out of his ear and proceeded to look at Jaehyun straight in the eye. “You. Can. Tell. Me. Then,” he said, spelling every word clearly and slowly, as if he was talking to a child. “What a date really is, I mean. Never went on one.”

“Never went on one—“ Jaehyun stopped himself before his disbelief could let it slip just how thrilled he was by the information. “Then how could you decide that _this_ is kind of a date?”

“Because I feel like it,” Taeyong said lightly. “How about you? Do you feel like this could pass as a date?”

“Obviously—well, maybe yeah, if you have a very loose standard of what a date is,” Jaehyun said, scratching the back of his neck again, something he always did whenever someone caught him off guard. Taeyong did that a lot, and in such a short span of time that his skin must’ve had thinned so much already. And before he could lose the drip of adrenaline rushing in his body, he added, “Sometimes… sometimes I’ll show you what a real date is.”

Taeyong was still looking at Jaehyun, face blank, but when Jaehyun said that, his eyes narrowed dangerously. Jaehyun’s heart sunk, and he wondered if he could make it to the door without crumbling to dust out of embarassment, but then Taeyong smiled and stretched his hand out to make finger guns, aiming them at Jaehyun. With a wide ass smile on his face. A really happy-looking smile. Jaehyun suddenly craved death.

“I’ll be looking forward to it,” he said, and Jaehyun wished that Taeyong could be at least a little _less_ attractive when he said that, or maybe he could be given a stronger heart, because he just wanted to die even more.

 

**_18.3.21 // 08:34 AM_ **

Taeyong called out his name right before he walked out from the door.

“What’s wrong?” Jaehyun asked, jittery because he’d wanted to get some air and let it wash the heat off his face, and now he had to face Taeyong again after all… all that. “Did I forget something?”

“No, it wasn’t you who forgot,” Taeyong said, and he beckoned Jaehyun to come closer. Jaehyun did, albeit a little tensely. Taeyong rummaged through his rucsac and pulled out a timeworn-looking book, with a bright yellow, minimalist cover. He handed it to Jaehyun with a smile, who took it confoundedly, and turned it around. The title was printed in a series of small, neat fonts: **_A GRIEF OBSERVED._**

“My favorite book. Got it in 2014 in a book bazaar,” Taeyong explained, before Jaehyun could say anything. “Yesterday, when I was working at home, I remembered what you said about your grieving friend. I wanted to lend you this, so maybe you can lend it to him? It’s such a great book, I swear. Old but gold, you know.”

“Oh,” Jaehyun said smartly, his mind suddenly went blank. Not a rare occurrence when he was around Taeyong, honestly. “Oh, um. But I… well, can I read it instead? He didn’t… my friend doesn’t really read.”

“I don’t mind,” Taeyong said lightheartedly. “Doesn’t matter who read it. It’s a knowledge I think everyone should know. Wait, but I thought you didn’t like reading.”

“I don’t,” Jaehyun admitted. “But it’s your favorite book.”

“So what if it’s my favorite book?”

Jaehyun couldn’t answer that, but Taeyong didn’t seem like he wanted an answer, anyway. He just shooed Jaehyun away with a wave. “Go meet Johnny before he gets pissed.”

Jaehyun held the book to his chest all the way to the café.

 

**_18.3.21 // 08:41 AM_ **

“I heard what he said,” Johnny uttered, eyes full of mirth and mouth wide in a teethy grin as soon as Jaehyun showed up in their meeting place at the café, Taeyong’s book safely tucked inside of his bag. “He said it was kinda a date. Don’t even try to hide it.”

Jaehyun groaned as he slid down and buried his face in his hands.

 

**_18.3.21 // 11:06 AM_ **

Jaehyun spent the next few hours working on (or crying over) Seulgi’s ecology homework, with Johnny filling him in on what was happening while he was missing class.

(“Yuta is batshit crazy,” Johnny declared.

“Tell me about it,” Jaehyun responded, though he didn’t really want to know, nor did he need a assertion that Yuta was, indeed, batshit crazy.

“He straight up walked to Seulgi and asked her out on a date. In the middle of the class.”

Jaehyun grunted. “He _what?_ ”

“While Sicheng was in the same fucking class, right in the front seats.”

“Oh my fucking god, someone shoot him in the head.”

“Believe me, Sicheng looked like he almost did. Don’t know what went through his mind, but I’m sure he won’t live long.”

Jaehyun made a mental note to buy flowers for Yuta’s funeral later.)

“But seriously though,” Johnny said, after their homeworks were mostly done (like, eighty percent done). “I didn’t know you were so chummy with Taeyong. I mean, I did tell you to talk to him, but this is unexpected.”

Jaehyun barely registered Johnny’s words. “I don’t… we’re not really chummy yet.”

Which would be a great lie, since Jaehyun just basically asked him out on a date earlier. But they weren’t really that chummy, at least not as chummy as Jaehyun would like them to be. Maybe soon, in the future. After that promised date. He cringed when he remember how ridiculously vague he was when he’d asked Taeyong out. Jaehyun would be a fucking failure of a lover if he couldn’t even do one thing right.

“Is he still unapproachable?”

“…no,” Jaehyun finally admitted.

“Is he still intimidating?”

“I don’t think his attractiveness will ever be _not_ intimidating,” Jaehyun said matter-of-factly, pushing Johnny’s plastic cup away with his pencil. Johnny watched in silence as Jaehyun started tapping his pencil on the rim of his cup soon after.

“Well, maybe some people can agree with you on that,” he agreed at last, smacking Jaehyun’s hand away and pushing his cup back within a safe distance from the edge of the table. “He is handsome.”

“Just handsome is an understatement.”

Johnny looked away from Jaehyun’s jittery hand on top of their ecology homeworks and suddenly broke off into a grin. “Wait, do you like him? Like, like him like _that?_ ”

Jaehyun frowned. “No, I don’t.”

“So you love him, then.”

“Yea— _no_ , I don’t! Stop trying to trip me,” Jaehyun whined, tossing his pencil at Johnny’s chest, though the older only laughed as it bounced his jacket harmlessly.

“You won’t be this riled up if you don’t _actually_ have something to trip over,” Johnny said sensibly, dodging a plastic spoon this time, still with a wide ass grin. “Aw, okay, my man, I’ll let it slide. Tell me if you’ve scored an actual date with him, though.”

“I won’t,” Jaehyun said, emphasizing so harshly on the word _won’t_ , but he didn’t make it clear whether it meant he wouldn’t score or a date with Taeyong or wouldn’t tell Johnny about it.

 

**_18.3.21 // 11:49 AM_ **

Johnny had to go because he had a lunch date with Taeil, so Jaehyun was left alone to deal with himself, and his thoughts. Still in the café, but now without Johnny, Jaehyun closed his books and pulled out his phone, which brought him to the realization that 1) he didn’t have Taeyong’s number, and 2) he’d completely forgotten about the existence of Future Jaehyun.

Now that he was alone again and holding his phone in one hand, all of his thoughts and concerns and wonders came crashing back in, almost like an avalanche. If Jaehyun didn’t have a less solid control of his own mental balance, he could’ve choked from the shock.

Future Jaehyun’s number was still on the top of his call log, refusing to go down, even if Jaehyun knew for a fact he’d been called by Johnny a few hours ago. Jaehyun had a feeling it would just stay there until… until whatever this weird time-crossing connection between them ended. He didn’t have a problem with that. It was the least of his worries.

He checked his watch, just for the sake of it. 13:44 was still more than an hour away.

Should he go home first?

 

**_20.10.8 // 07:46 PM_ **

Jaehyun is less dumbfounded in the morning, when he’s had his coffee and a toast (with slightly charred crusts because he zoned out while making it). He is less dumbfounded when he’s sitting down on the stairs, eyes blank, gripping on the rail as a solid something he can actually hold onto, and not a fucking vague concept of another him from another year living somewhere in between the also vague concepts that are timelines. His mind is spinning, but he is definitely less dumbfounded than he was last night, laying down on the mattress, staring at the ceilings for minutes straight until he was sure he’d pierce holes through his roof.

Surprisingly enough, despite the stupefying eye-opener, the ensuing sleep was dreamless and comfortable. Probably even the best sleep he’s had yet since Taeyong was gone. He didn’t toss and turn much, as he woke up to his blankets wrapped around him and not on the floor as how it used to be. He also woke up less tired, strangely, and when he brushed his teeth, facing his reflection in the mirror, he didn’t freak out like what he’d expect last night, after the call ended. His rational mind told him that he had no reason to freak out in the first place since it was, well, _himself_. Jaehyun is full of self-hatred, but he wasn’t afraid of himself, so.

Now he’s still sitting on the stairs, leaning to the side, reliant on the warmth of the coffee cup in between his hands and the compact metal of the rail to keep him grounded to reality. He probably looks like he’s having a hangover. Not much difference there, he has to admit. He feels equally lightheaded and groggy and out of touch.

Maybe life is trying to tell him that he needs to give his heart a break from all those goddamn ache and starts ressurecting his brain to actually mull over the occurrence. That’s the least fantastical theory Jaehyun has currently, in response to him actually talking to Jaehyun of the past.

Jaehyun of the past, imagine that. If he told anyone, they’d probably put a strait jacket on him and ship him to the nearest mental hospital. He tries not to dwell too much on the thought, not wanting to continue on the image of Taeil wiping his tears and Johnny with a pained look on his face and Doyoung’s confused frown as Jaehyun was shucked in the nearest padded cell, because wow, okay, that escalated quickly, and weird as this was, Jaehyun was going a little to overboard with his own imagination.

Jaehyun will probably continue to sit there all morning long if there isn’t a knock on his door around 8 AM, and he’s forced to pick himself up and open the door. Taeil’s smile greets him, with Mark peering over the older’s shoulders.

“ _Hyuuung!_ ”

The neighbors living two houses away will probably still hear Mark’s excited shout, it’s really loud.

“We came for breakfast,” Taeil explains, when Jaehyun just stares at them dumbfoundedly, undoubtedly looking really dazed by his friends’ sudden appearance this early in the morning.

“I don’t recall us being in the same breakfast club,” Jaehyun says finally, after shaking himself out of his reverie. “I don’t recall being in any club which includes _specifically_ us three, actually.”

Mark gets impatient and pushes Taeil, which ends in Taeil pushing Jaehyun too, away from the door, then the both of them stumbling over the entrance. Jaehyun notices that Taeil has a paper bag filled with groceries in one arm, and both of Mark’s hands are occupied with Taeil’s Go Green bags. They both look like they’ve just planned the best surprise party ever, except that it’s not gonna be a party, and it’s barely 8, and Jaehyun is basically a mentally unstable target who gets thrown off his personal schedule pretty easily so surprising him usually doesn’t end well.

Not what’s on his mind when Taeil and Mark hijack his kitchen and begin their ‘party’.

“Mark, check the fridge and throw out any moldy food,” Taeil orders from the sink.

“Yes, Sir.” Mark makes a solemn salute before he goes straight for Jaehyun’s fridge.

“You two are _trespassing_ ,” Jaehyun declares, though in a defeated tone, complete with a sigh, leaning against the wall and watches as Taeil (twenty-six years old) and Mark (twenty-one years old) continue on. They sure don’t act like grown ass men. “Also, how dare you, hyung. I don’t have moldy food in my fridge, it’s called a fridge for a reason.”

Taeil stands up straight to give him the most complacent smile of all time, Jaehyun didn’t even know he could smile like that.

“Not moldy, maybe, but over the expiry date? We’ll never know. _You_ ’ll know, but you’ll never care, so we have to sort things out for you.”

Jaehyun opens his mouth to argue, but Mark chooses this perfect time to add in his input from behind the fridge door, “Hyung, I think it’s time for these tangerines to go away, they’re brown Also, this lonely piece of carrot reminds me of Johnny hyung’s wrinkled sock I found in my closet last week. That was, uh, not exactly the best sight I’ve ever seen.”

Taeil’s smile widens even more, and Jaehyun exhales.

“Okay, fine, do whatever you want,” he says. “But you better clean up after.”

Taeil just laughs. “Let us take care of you, Jaehyun. You had brown tangerines and wrinkly carrots in your fridge, what the heck have you been eating?”

Jaehyun snorts. “Things that don’t need to be kept in the fridge.”

“What a waste of electricity,” Mark comments, still rummaging through the fridge and throwing questionable-looking food over his shoulder, one squelchy tomato barely missing Taeil’s jeans.

“Shut up, kid. Also, you literally lived off ramen for one straight month last year—“

“ _Mark!_ ” Taeil exclaims, aghast, his attention shifts away from Jaehyun and now onto the youngest between them. “I haven’t heard about this! One straight month—you could’ve died! Why didn’t you tell me this earlier when I asked you if you’ve been eating right?”

Mark whines. “Hyung, I _told_ you not to rat me out! We talked about this!”

“Think before you speak next time, then,” Jaehyun tells him, turning around and runs before Taeil can find out that he’s sharing the deadly habit with Mark in the same exact month.

He doesn’t miss seeing Taeil grabbing the kid by the arm, though. Even if Mark stands a good few inches taller than he is, he seems to shrink in size as Taeil continues to scold him about the danger of eating so many instant noodles. What an amusing pair. Jaehyun makes sure his laugh is heard all the way down to the kitchen from the bathroom.

And there it goes again, his concerns and thoughts forgotten, drowned by Taeil and Mark’s voices downstairs.

 

**_20.10.8 // 08:32 PM_ **

Jaehyun comes down after the voices have died down, finding Taeil perched on the counter, watching over a fidgety Mark boiling eggs with a look that can either be described as exasperated or devoted. Mark can’t even break eggs without getting it all over his clothes, so maybe Taeil has changed the cooking routine into something that won’t involve him doing so.

“What’s up, breakfast club?” Jaehyun says, looming over Mark’s shoulders to see him eyeing the boiling water intently, as if the eggs will suddenly pop out and place themselves on the plates if he stares hard enough, and Mark will be saved from actually fishing them out one by one without dropping or smashing one (or two, or all three) against the counter.

“I’ve decided that I’m teaching Mark how to cook proper food from now on,” Taeil declares, when Jaehyun throws him a questioning look. “I am not having neither him nor _you_ —“ Jaehyun winces when the older smacks him with the other end of the ladle, so Mark must’ve ratted him out as well (fair enough), “—eat only instant ramen for one month straight. I won’t even allow you to eat more than two per week, actually.”

Jaehyun hears Mark mutter something that sounds suspiciously like ‘yes, mom’, though Taeil doesn’t seem to hear. He probably won’t mind if he hears it, anyway.

“That’s heartening, considering Mark can’t even open a bag of Doritos without things exploding to smithereens like Nagasaki,” Jaehyun deadpans.

“ _Will you lay off me_ ,” Mark complains childishly. “Also, if Yuta hyung hears that, he’ll kill you. It’s offensive. To him and his home country.”

“I joked about Nagasaki once in Tokyo and he was cool with it,” Taeil suddenly says, and Jaehyun wonders why does he even partake in this off-rail conversation. “Unless, of course, he didn’t have the heart to tell me. He’ll probably gut Jaehyun, indeed.”

“Excellent,” Jaehyun comments. “Can we actually just make use of your good intentions coming here for my sake and stop tearing each other down?”

“You started it.”

“Excuse _you_ , Mark Lee, it was you—“

“Mark, the water’s boiling over! _Mark!_ The ladle! Get the ladle—”

 

**_20.10.8 // 09:10 PM_ **

Half of Jaehyun’s Calendula Burn and much, much more of Mark’s painful wails later, the kitchen is cleaned from any signs that a disaster has ever happened.

(“It’s not that bad,” Jaehyun says, even though he grimaces when he looks at the painfully red flush on the back Mark’s hand. The younger is – amazingly – not crying, but he sure looks like he wants to. “Don’t be such a wimp, Mark, you’re twenty-one.”

“ _Jaehyun!_ He flipped the damn pot over!”)

“Maybe next time you all should text me before you come over,” Jaehyun says, after Mark is no longer making a pained sort of face everytime he moves his hand and they’re both eating in the living room. Mark gets the couch all to himself, since he’s injured, while Taeil and Jaehyun sit on the floor, near the TV.

“Would it make much difference if you knew we were coming?” Taeil asks, pointing a spoon at Jaehyun. “Be grateful that we actually came here to care for you.”

“But we ended up caring for Mark instead,” Jaehyun says, grinning.

Mark heaves a long sigh, but doesn’t argue.

“Johnny wanted to come, but he has work,” Taeil continues on, as if Jaehyun has never said a word. “I invited Doyoung, but he’s out of town. Ten isn’t available, too.”

Jaehyun actually stops eating. “What the heck, were you all planning to crash at my place? Without me knowing? This early in the morning?”

“Jaehyun, we’re your friends _,_ not some strangers you meet at the bar overnight. Why do you look so scandalized? Do you not like my cooking? Do you not like _me?_ ” Taeil’s quick questions are like well-fired shots, accusations piercing through Jaehyun so expertly that Jaehyun is sure Taeil isn’t as uncomplicated as he portrays himself to be. He’s lowkey manipulative and Jaehyun just realizes it.

Mark looks up from his place on the couch, silently shaking his head behind Taeil’s back. Jaehyun watches on vacantly.

“No, hyung, I just… okay, it’s fine, I don’t mind, please come here whenever you want,” he finally says, hanging his head low, and Taeil beams at him happily, as if saying _that’s what I thought._

Things are pretty cool from then on, until Taeil follows Jaehyun to the sink and corners him there. Jaehyun can at least understand Taeil’s plan of leaving Mark out, but unfortunately this means Taeil is going to talk about his favorite topic, and Jaehyun’s least favorite one, which is his wellbeing.

“Are you okay, Jaehyun?”

Jaehyun, who is putting down the plates, stops and turns. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Hyung,” Jaehyun says resignedly, almost pleading. “You ask me this everytime we meet. I’m fine. Well, not _fine_ fine, but I’m not dying.”

“No, I don’t mean… I don’t mean it that way,” Taeil says, and he leans against the counter, watching as Jaehyun begins washing the dishes. “You’re different, somehow. Today. You feel different. You’re less tense. Is it because Mark, or did you finally talk to someone?”

“Talk to someone… what?” Jaehyun repeats, and he stops again in his track to look at Taeil. Taeil is staring at him, scrutinizing, and Jaehyun’s mind winds back to the number on top of his call log, the one he was thinking about before Taeil and Mark came. Oh. _Oh_. That kind of talk.

“You did, didn’t you?” Taeil asks again, when Jaehyun just blinks owlishly, lost in his own thoughts.

“Well… maybe,” Jaehyun says, hesitating a little. “I did talk to someone. Kinda. But we weren’t talking much about my… condition. He’s an old friend.”

(He’s not exactly lying. The other Jaehyun is quite literally an _old_ friend.)

He half-expects Taeil to start attacking him with more questions, but he’s in for a surprise. Taeil just sighs, clearly in relief, and uncrosses his arms.

“Good lord, Jaehyun,” he says. “That’s one worry off my mind. Baby steps lead to giant strides, so you’re doing great. I’m proud of you.”

“Uh, what?”

“I was so worried since you couldn’t talk to me about it,” Taeil carries on without sparing Jaehyun a chance to voice out his confusion properly – a good decision, probably. “But if you’re at least trying to talk with other, that’s a relief. A really substantial relief.”

Jaehyun still doesn’t know what to say. “Oh. Okay, hyung.”

Taeil beams at him one more time before he leaves him alone with the dishes. Jaehyun stops to think, while Taeil aims his concern at someone else (primarily Mark, whose hand is still burning).

 

**_20.10.8 // 17:13 PM_ **

Jaehyun wakes up with Mark’s head on his stomach (his injured hand hanging way safely from the danger of getting crushed under his own body), and Taeil’s on his shoulder. The three of them are hunched together on the sofa, the muted TV across of them airing some NatGeo programs about great whites. Jaehyun doesn’t remember how they end up this way, tangled around each other and dead to the world, but he isn’t complaining, even if Mark will probably drool on his shirt later.

He tugs away the remote stuck under Taeil’s thigh and changes the station. Mark loves to watch oceanic documentaries, but Jaehyun has a severe case of bathophobia, so. He switches through the channels quickly, searching for something that won’t trigger him for once, and ends up on some sort of dark-looking drama.

A man in suit is yelling at a woman in the middle of a pouring rain, “We can’t just do that! Things could change!”

Jaehyun watches on even though the acting is honestly just so cringey, as if in trance.

“What do you mean?” the woman yells back. “We have to save him! I don’t care what it takes, I’m gonna save him!”

“You need to think about the consequences,” the man continues, now in a much more defeated tone. “It’s not as simple as you think.”

At that moment, Taeil shifts awake from his slumber next to Jaehyun, and leaned forward to look at the scene he’s watching. “What’s that,” he says, narrowing his eyes to see better. “Since when do you watch this kind of thing?”

Jaehyun just hums, preferring not to answer. Taeil probably thinks he’s still half-asleep, so he wakes up without another word and goes upstairs, leaving Jaehyun alone (still with Mark on his stomach).

Jaehyun mutes the TV again and leans back against the couch, his mind spinning in a dreadful pace. Something the woman has said is stuck on his mind, like a disease. _I’m gonna save him no matter what it takes._

Why does it sound like something he can do?

 

**_20.10.8 // 18:02 PM_ **

Taeil insists on cooking Jaehyun some dinner before leaving, a sleepy Mark following right behind him with a shaky wave of goodbye.

“Eat well,” Taeil says from the porch, holding Mark by the arm so the younger wouldn’t trip and fall on the sidewalk (Mark has enough trouble walking straight while he’s wide awake, moreover when he’s half-asleep). “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jaehyun says, but he accompanies his words with a small smile, to assure Taeil. “I have morning shift with Mark tomorrow. Mark, do you hear me? Let’s eat real food at lunch, for both of our sakes.”

Taeil smiles back, and says in a softer voice just so Mark won’t hear. “Talk more with your friend,” he says. “It’s good for you.”

He wonders if Taeil’s right.

 

**_18.3.21 // 13:43 PM_ **

When the hour hit, Jaehyun had already had his lunch and was laying down on his bed at home, flipping over Taeyong’s book. This would actually be the first time he did the call when he was home, actually – he was usually still around campus around this time, either goofing around with Johnny or watch Yuta play on the field or go on a sweets escapade with Sicheng.

(Now that he thought about it, it had been awhile since he last hung with Sicheng. Maybe they could make plans tomorrow and trash talk Yuta together. He’d text him later. He was sure Sicheng would agree, remembering the stunt Yuta pulled today in Ecology.)

Jaehyun kept his gaze affixed on his phone screen as the minute and second ticked closer to the designated call time. When it finally happened, he still sucked in a sharp breath, dazed. He’d watched his phone work by itself and call Future Jaehyun’s number two times in a row now, but it still astonished him, and also creeped him out a bit. While he waited for the other Jaehyun to answer, he ran through his minds to think about what should they talk about today.

Future Jaehyun answered on the third ring.

“Hey.”

Jaehyun frowned, but also felt a little amused. His future self sounded stable, almost casual, even, as if he’d accepted the fact that this was seriously happening, and that there was nothing he (they) could do anyway. Jaehyun liked that. Maybe he should adopt the same mindset.

“Hey,” Jaehyun replied, after a few seconds of thinking and more thinking. “How are you today, me?”

“Don’t say that kind of stuff, this still weirds me out.”

Oh, okay, there he went. So he wasn’t _that_ accepting yet, at least.

“Also, answering your question, today was… okay. My friends came uninvited and cooked me breakfast. On that note, please please pretty _please_ teach Mark how to boil eggs properly. Please. I beg you. Save him his hand, he still needs it for running blood tests.”

Jaehyun laughed out loud. “Boy can’t even open a Doritos without it exploding to bits like Nagasaki, what are you doing, mixing him up with boiling water?”

There was a short gasp from the other Jaehyun. “I know, right? He can’t even – fucking Nagasaki, god. Good one, dude. I also said that this morning, actually.”

Jaehyun hummed. “What, Nagasaki? So we’re simultaneously sharing bad jokes now?”

“I don’t know if it’s exactly simultaneous, but it’s definitely not bad jokes. Offensive, maybe. Just don’t say it front of Yuta.” Future Jaehyun ended this with a laugh.

“Noted. Yuta’s fucking crazy, by the way. I ditched class today to hang with Taeyong, and Johnny said he—“

There was a loud crash from the other end of the line, and then there was some cursing. Jaehyun pulled his phone away from his ear, looking at the screen, but then Future Jaehyun’s voice came back before he could ask what was wrong.

“W-what did you say?” Future Jaehyun asked, stuttering, and Jaehyun wondered why did he sound so nervous, all of the sudden. No, not nervous… more like upset.

“I ditched class?” Jaehyun tried tentatively. “Did you not do that when you were my age? Shit, that sounds wrong. Also, what kind of student are you – _were_ you – if you didn’t ditch class?”

“No, not that,” Future Jaehyun uttered, now way more impatiently. “Who did you say you hung with?”

“Oh,” Jaehyun said, feeling a lump in his throat as he remembered back to the events earlier today. _Sometimes… sometimes I’ll show you what a real date is._ How could he forget that he’d said that catastrophe of a line to the possibly most beautiful man on earth? “I hung with Taeyong. This morning. In the library.”

“Taeyong?” Future Jaehyun repeated, a little weakly, and Jaehyun felt really weird hearing the way his other self had said the name. It was peculiarly familiar, and full of longing, and a bit sad. He had a bad feeling about this. “Oh, I see, then. Is he still as standoffish as he was back in high school?”

And there went his bad feeling, gone without a trace. “No, he’s actually really nice now. He lent me a really cool book. And, uh, I kinda asked him out on a date. Not today, but maybe soon. But it was bad. So bad. I’m so lame, oh my god.” Jaehyun rolled on his stomach and hid his face in his pillows, drowning in another breakdown.

Future Jaehyun snorted loudly. “Tell me about it, kid.”

“You sure? You’ll hate yourself more.”

“Please, I can’t hate myself more than I already have. Also, I don’t think I hate you. Or the me from two years ago, if we’re taking this concretely.”

“Shit, you’re actually right.” Jaehyun took a deep breath. “Guy said he didn’t know what a real date was since he never went on one. So I… I told him I’d show him.”

There was an absurdly long silence. Then:

“Tell me your exact line, please. Also, you suck.”

“I knowwww, shut up.” Jaehyun wanted to bury himself in the ground now, not just his face in the pillow. “I said ‘sometimes I’ll show you what a real date is’. I wasn’t thinking right.”

Future Jaehyun took another lengthy pause. Seriously, his tendency to think a lot could hurt the already very limited time they had. Though Jaehyun wasn’t so sure why it’d be hurtful if they lost time; this connection may happened for a reason, but until he found out what it was, he’d pretend like it was unsupported.

“That’s… certainly not the best, but not the worst I’ve ever heard,” Future Jaehyun finally said, and Jaehyun felt like he definitely heard a small laugh tailored somewhere in that sentence. It was embarrassing (even though he definitely had no reason to be embarrassed, since he was, once again, talking to himself), but also heartening, somehow. “And? How did Taeyong react? He agreed, didn’t he?”

“Yeah. He said he’d be looking forward to it,” Jaehyun said. Then he frowned. “Also, how did you know he agreed?”

Future Jaehyun cleared his throat promptly. “Uh, a guess.”

“Did _you_ ask Taeyong out while you were here, in 2018?”

“Jaehyun. That’s a rather sensitive question.”

“Did you or didn’t you?”

Yet another pause, and then Future Jaehyun replied, in a thinner voice. “Yeah, I did.”

“Good. I thought so. How did you do it? How did you ask him out? Was it different from the way I did it?”

“It wasn’t… much different. I asked him out in the football field, though, I think. But we shouldn’t talk about this.”

Jaehyun’s frown deepened, and he lifted his face from the pillow. “Why? Did something happen? Something went wrong with the date? I’m gonna go on a date with him, right?”

Future Jaehyun’s voice softened. “Yes, you’re gonna go on a date with him, Jaehyun, and it’s gonna go well. Just don’t bring him to that café downtown, he doesn’t like the coffee there. He won’t tell you, though. Not until… years later.”

“Really? Shit, I was planning to. The interior is great, so I thought… Oh, well. Thanks for the heads-up.”

“Don’t mind. Also, he’s allergic to shrimp. Keep him away from that.”

“Mm. You sure know a lot,” Jaehyun noted. “You must still be close, then. Tell me, he’s still around, right? Do you still go on dates? Or maybe you’re _actually_ dating? Oh, God, that’s insane. He’s already a doctor in your time? What color is his hair now?”

Jaehyun knew he was getting way, way ahead of himself now, and that asking this much questions in one single sitting about an event that hadn’t happened yet would really just be cheating on life or something. He wondered if there would be punishment to this kind of underhand. He hoped there wouldn’t. He was just interested, borderline nosy, and also damn infatuated with the idea of him actually dating Taeyong.

“I… I don’t think it’s a good idea to tell you all that,” Future Jaehyun finally said, and he was back to his thin, coarse voice again, much to the current Jaehyun’s curiousity. “But his hair was black, last time I checked. Black looks best on him. What, is he still white over there?”

“Yeah. Jack Frost style.”

“Hm. Oh, tell him to try pink next time. It’ll suit him well.”

Jaehyun laughed, but he also couldn’t shake the feeling that Future Jaehyun was trying to drive the conversation away from something, somehow. It was a dangling feeling, light but persistent. He couldn’t really ignore it.

“Any color would suit him well, honestly,” he said, and Future Jaehyun hummed in agreement. “You know, you didn’t—“

And just like that, when Jaehyun was about to address the problem, the call ended.

 

**_20.10.8 // 00:07 AM_ **

Jaehyun is finally using the study chair he bought in that cut-rate flea market near Mark’s place a few years ago after months leaving it to dust. He sits there and buries his face in his hands, and then scratches his head, and then slaps his own face. He doesn’t really put his mind into it, which is why when his own hands hurt him, he’s surprised, and later stops.

He wants to think, but his mind is void.

“Think,” he says out loud. Maybe if he does that, his brain will get the message and he’ll start thinking for real. No luck, though.

“Think,” he says again, firmer and more desperate this time, smashing his face against his arms on the desk. “Think think think think, please, I need to think.”

When minutes pass him by and he still can’t get himself to think, he pushes back his chair and stands up, livid. To say his mind isn’t working would definitely be _wrong_ , since it’s filled with so many things: Taeyong, Taeyong, the call, the football field, Taeyong, the drama scene from earlier, Taeil, Mark, Taeyong, and more Taeyong. Mostly Taeyong. Which might be why his mind is so keen on staying put around the memories, not wanting to go forward or back.

So Jaehyun opts to lie down on the floor instead. He needs to cool down. Quite literally.

He lets the cold tiles soothe down his irritation, along with the unsteady beating of his heart. Gradually hearing it stabilizing helps, somehow, and he closes his eyes, inhales deeply, and thinks: _Please think._

Maybe he should start from memories he’s tried his best suppressing.

When was the day he asked Taeyong out? Two years ago, undoubtedly, because Jaehyun remembers that Taeyong was so busy with his final papers. Too busy that he worked anywhere, not just the library: the caféteria, the classroom, the field. Whenever and wherever Jaehyun saw him, he was on his laptop, bags under his dark eyes, and a scary-looking face. Reminded him a lot of the unfriendly Taeyong that he’d seen back in high school.

Jaehyun remembers thinking, _wow, he seriously needs a break._

And then he remembers thinking, _I should ask him to hang._

Jaehyun asked him to _hang_ , not _out on a_ _date_. He’s sure of this. He remembers walking up to Taeyong, who was sitting on one of the benches around the football field of their uni, biting his nails as he thought. Jaehyun remembers this well, because he thinks about it a lot before bed: Taeyong looked up to him when he was close enough, pulled his earphones out and said in a tired voice, “Yeah?” and Jaehyun just said, “Let’s go out.”

“What?”

“Let’s go out. You need it.”

Taeyong just stared, blankly, almost dumbly. His hair was still pinkish in color – he said he hadn’t had the time to dye it back to black just yet – and Jaehyun began to wonder if he’d said it wrong. He just wanted Taeyong to take a break from his dumb papers.

(And also maybe to pay more attention to him because lately he hadn’t been able to see him as much as he wanted to. Jaehyun refused to admit this to himself aloud. He had _pride_.)

“Are you… what kind of out are we talking about?” Taeyong asked finally, after leaving Jaehyun’s offer hanging in the air. “Be more specific, please.”

Jaehyun frowned. “Out. Like, out out. Go out with me.”

Jaehyun still marvels over just how bad he’d screwed up that one line. He just wanted to say _let’s hang out_ , and he’d said _go out with me_ instead. Which, of course, meant a completely different thing. Jaehyun knew this. Taeyong knew this.

Taeyong’s face scrunched up in a confused scowl, and Jaehyun suddenly realized what atrocity he’d just sputtered. He closed his eyes, muttered a _fuck me_ under his breath, and turned around to face the field and yelled, “Yuta Nakamoto!”

Surprisingly enough, there was an answer, coming from the crowd of sweat-covered students scattered around the field. “That’s a motherfucking Yuta Nakamoto _hyung_ for you, Jung!”

“Whatever, ass! Chuck the ball at my face please. Please!”

“Have you lost your goddamn mind?” Yuta yelled back just as loud, making a few of his teammates turn Jaehyun’s way. “Sounds cool, though. Look over here.” Yuta snatched the ball from one of his friends’ hands and aimed at Jaehyun. He sounded serious. He looked serious. Jaehyun didn’t mind, not really.

“One hit one kill, please,” he pleaded, but Taeyong grabbed Jaehyun by the back of the shirt and pulled him away from the field.

“Stand down, Yuta, he was just joking, what the hell,” he said to Yuta, who lowered his hand in disappointment when Taeyong came to the rescue. Still with his fingers gripped around Jaehyun’s shirt, Taeyong told him, “Jaehyun, I think you’re overreacting.”

“I’m not. This is normal. Let me die.”

“That’s exactly what an overreacting person would say,” Taeyong responded dryly. “What did you say? Go out with you? Sure.”

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean that. No, I actually did, but not that way. I just wanted to—wait, what? What did you just say?”

Jaehyun stared up at Taeyong in confusion, and disbelief, and awe, and also some more feelings that he couldn’t really describe because Taeyong still looked so damn heavenly under the sunlights, even when he was scowling and had shades of dangerously deep purple under his eyes and looked like he could pass out from heat stroke just any moment now.

“I said _sure_ , dumbass. Sure, as in, sure, I’ll go out with you.”

“You’ll go—you’ll go out with me?”

Taeyong sighed. “Yeah.”

“ _Why?_ ” Jaehyun gasped. This was unreal. Taeyong was unreal. Taeyong agreeing to date him was even more so. Jaehyun should actually try and get Yuta to hurl that ball to his face again, for reality check.

Taeyong let go of Jaehyun’s shirt and smacked his shoulder. “What do you mean why, _you_ were the one who asked _me_.”

“But I—“ Jaehyun held back his words, his breath choked in his throat as he did. “Well. Okay. Wait. Okay. Let me live now.”

“I am letting you live,” Taeyong said, rolling his eyes. “Or else you won’t be able to take me out now, won’t you?”

Thinking back to it, maybe Taeyong had been sending a not so mixed signals, after all. All those times spent hanging in the library might not be as platonic to him as Jaehyun had initially thought. Maybe he was oblivious because he was too busy being smitten. The concept of ‘mutual crushing’ was so lost in him that time.

“I was actually gonna ask you out first,” Taeyong said, in their fourth or fifth date, Jaehyun can’t really remember well now. “You beat me to it.”

“Oh, really.”

“Really really.” And he laughed. The loveliest laugh Jaehyun has ever heard, even if it was a bit condescending.

Okay, this is a mistake. Obviously a mistake. Definitely a mistake. Thinking back is a mistake. Jaehyun rolls over to his stomach and bangs his forehead against the floor repeatedly until his sight darkens. Good, the pain drowns the reemerging longing a bit.

He should think straight. Sideway. Balanced. Not forward, not back. Here, in the middle. Present. Keeping things controlled, because it won’t help if he falls from the line now. He’ll drown again for sure. He doesn’t know if he’ll resurface.

It takes him so long just to conclude one thing he should’ve been able to conclude from the first time he’s realized that there’s another him out there. It takes him so long that when he finally realizes it, he’s so mad at himself for being so stupid, for being so oblivious and dense. It takes him so long even though what he wants is just so, so simple that it _hurts_ , like black oil leaking right into his lungs, and he's breathless.

He wants to save Taeyong.

 

**_20.10.8 // 00:13 AM_ **

Jaehyun stays on the floor for a couple more minutes, but when he’s about to get himself up, his eyes catch something bright-colored under the stack of papers beneath his bed. He drops himself back to the floor and picks on the edges of said object.

It’s a book, which is weird. Really weird. Jaehyun doesn’t read. He doesn’t own any book, save for maybe medical books and dictionaries, which he also doesn’t read unless absolutely necessary. He pulls the book out from under the stack, and brushes the dust over the paper cover with the side of his hand.

Jaehyun blinks as he reads the title: **_A GRIEF OBSERVED._** He’s sure he’s never bought this book anywhere before, or even seen it in all his life. Yet there’s something nonsensically conversant with the book in his hands, with its fading yellow cover, its crisp, neat fonts and the hoary pages.

Jaehyun opens it, just to satiate his curiousity. There’s a small writing on the bottom left of the first page, a few inches under the title, and Jaehyun narrows his eyes and leans in closer to see what the words are.

**_Taeyong Lee_ **

**_2014_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did things confuse you? did they screw you up? idk they definitely confuse me... i tried to put in humor here if case you haven't noticed... also!! ALSO!!!! the boss mv was released while i was finishing this and if i thought minhyung lee's existence was illegal before, yukhei just came around to prove me wrong. rip me. rip all of us, U just went on a fuckin killing spree the whole mv is offensive from start to finish tbh
> 
> also it's like... 1 am here and tomorrow is monday pls forgive if you spot any mistake ;;


	3. sewn circlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaehyun doesn’t like showing weakness to others, but he’s been keeping things to himself for far too long and he’s so close to breaking and sinking, and the only thing keeping him afloat is his own trust. His own trust in himself. He trusts himself, that’s literally it, and he finds himself pleading, in a very thin, fragile voice that he wouldn’t use in front of anyone else but himself, “Save me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhhh oh my god, after what feels like 28263536 years and shucking away 63725327 school assignments i finally finished this last chapter. tw: this one contains a death scene, a really cliche flashback, a lot of drama and bitter jaehyun berating the universe. so there's that, i guess.
> 
> this chapter is dedicated to wilhelmine, my sweet classmate and #1 mark lee stan, who always leaves really sweet comments and who always comes to me first to scream about nct!! and also thank you to kia for her everlasting patience and for listening to me whine all the time about the hardships of finishing this, you two are such blessings ;w;
> 
> unimportant but also i listened to lauv's reforget and chanyeol & punch's stay with me religiously while writing this! perfect songs to get me in the emo mood T_T

_We cannot understand. The best is perhaps what we understand least._

**— C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed**

**_19.7.1 // 06:04 AM_ **

What Jaehyun liked most about Monday mornings, despite it being Monday, was that Taeyong was always still there when he woke up. The older usually went to work a few hours before Jaehyun’s designated wake-up time, so this was a treat. He would be leaning against the headboard, one leg down to the floor, glasses sliding down his nose, with his messy dark hair damp from the shower.

Jaehyun felt a little overindulged sometimes, when Taeyong noticed him waking up and immediately put his book away, clearly waiting for Jaehyun to be conscious enough so he could kiss him and maybe get him to kiss him back.

“Fuck, it’s Monday,” was usually Jaehyun’s first greeting, and today was not much different. He hated Monday. Who didn’t, really.

Taeyong laughed, as he used his fingers to brush the hair off Jaehyun’s face. He smelled like Jaehyun’s herbal shampoo, and it was a tenderly familiar smell, more than enough to make Jaehyun’s day start a little bit better.

“Don’t whine, I’m right here,” he said. He leaned in closer, and just when Jaehyun lifted his face up, thinking Taeyong was going in for a kiss, he pulled right back.

Jaehyun frowned.

“What’s wrong?” Taeyong asked with a playful smile when Jaehyun just grumbled unclearly and buried his face back in the pillows. “Not up for a good day?”

“I thought you were going to kiss me,” he wailed, voice muffled.

“I’ll consider that after you’ve brushed your teeth,” Taeyong said, and he patted Jaehyun’s head before leaving. Jaehyun felt the mattress shift as Taeyong’s weight was gone. “I made you toasts, come downstairs.”

“I don’t like toasts.”

“You like it when it’s _my_ toasts, shut up.”

Jaehyun groaned, because honestly he liked everything when it came to Taeyong, and pushed himself up on his elbows. He saw Taeyong checking himself out in Jaehyun’s bathroom before catching Jaehyun’s eyes through the mirror, and the older smiled. Jaehyun actually caught him doing this a few times throughout the day, whether it was at home or at work. One of the cute things he did seemingly needlessly.

“I don’t know why you still do that, you already know how good you look,” Jaehyun commented, and Taeyong just shook his head and chortled. “Did any of your patients try to flirt with you again yesterday?”

“Jaehyun, all of my patients are _sedated_. They don’t exactly flirt when they’re like that.”

Jaehyun rolled off the bed and went to brush his teeth.

 

**_19.7.1 // 06:17 AM_ **

Jaehyun remembered what day it was halfway through chewing Taeyong’s toast. The way he did it was pretty theatrical, too – he stopped chewing and almost choked and all that good stuff.

“Wait,” Jaehyun said, after he’d gotten the piece of bread stuck in his throat to go down. He stared blankly at Taeyong, who was drinking coffee in his favorite mug (“CUTE ENOUGH TO STOP YOUR HEART AND SKILLED ENOUGH TO RESTART IT”) on his favorite place near the kitchen sink, reading the folded newspapers placed on the counter as he drank. “Wait, Taeyong.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, not glancing up from the newspaper. “My work isn’t until 8, so I think we can relax for a little bit.”

“No, Taeyong,” Jaehyun persisted. “Today is the first of July.”

“So?” Taeyong said, but Jaehyun knew it was more of an instinctive response because Taeyong soon seemed to get what Jaehyun was trying to say. He turned to look at Jaehyun now, wide-eyed.

“It’s your birthday,” Jaehyun declared.

“It’s _my_ birthday,” Taeyong repeated, amazed.

“You totally forgot, didn’t you?”

Taeyong put down his mug, still staring at Jaehyun. “I swear June just started like, last week. How did it go to July this fast?”

“Obviously your sense of time is dwindling again, you workaholic,” Jaehyun said, and he broke off into a grin. “Wonderful, you have kept yourself fed well enough for twenty four years. That’s got to be an achievement.”

“I’ve survived on two hours of sleep every day for twenty four years straight, you can bet that’s a damn achievement right there.”

“You’re the worst doctor there ever is,” Jaehyun announced, and Taeyong laughed out loud, peeling himself off the counter he was leaning against and went to the table. “But I still love you so much.”

“Obviously,” Taeyong responded, and this time when he leaned in to kiss Jaehyun, he didn’t pull away. Jaehyun smelled his shampoo again on Taeyong, and then he noticed that Taeyong was wearing his shirt, one that he hadn’t worn for a long time and had become Taeyong’s go-to shirt of sort whenever he was staying over.

And god, he even tasted like Jaehyun’s toothpaste.

 

**_19.7.1 // 08:14 AM_ **

As soon as Taeyong was off to work, Jaehyun whipped out his phone and called Johnny. As usual, the older answered in the first two rings, even though he should be at work right now. He guessed that maybe high school teachers could take a break in between classes to answer calls, too. Or maybe Johnny just didn’t take his job seriously.

“What bakery makes the best cake around here?” Jaehyun immediately sputtered, as soon as the older picked up the phone. Johnny didn’t even ask what Jaehyun was on about.

“Chill down, hotshot, Taeyong doesn’t even like cake. Don’t you know that?”

Jaehyun blinked owlishly. “But we bought him cake last year.”

“Yeah, and _we_ ended up finishing it,” Johnny continued on, not even losing one single beat. “Try something different this time. Let’s just make him a full-scale surprise party. The adult version, though.”

“What, you gonna take him to a strippers club or something?” Jaehyun snorted at the thought of Taeyong, that obstructive, no-nonsense Taeyong, getting lost in a dark clubroom full of half-naked people, but then he shuddered. He didn’t want that, not really.

“ _Dude_ ,” Johnny said, and he sounded so done with Jaehyun then that he wondered why Johnny didn’t just end the call and cut Jaehyun out of his life forever. “I mean with alcohol and stuff. That kind of adult. Maybe. And food. Strippers club didn’t even cross my mind, mind you.”

“But it’s… I feel like it’s still lacking without any cake,” Jaehyun said sadly, and he actually pouted, even if Johnny wouldn’t be able to see it.

Johnny heaved a long, loud sigh. “Fine. Go with Sicheng and find us some cakes.”

“ _Some_ cakes?”

“Okay, not some. I meant just one. We barely finished last year’s tart.”

Jaehyun brightened. “Okay!”

“God, you’re such a kid,” Johnny said, and even if he sounded tired, he sounded fond, too, somewhat. He wouldn’t admit it though, just like how Jaehyun wouldn’t admit how grateful he was of Johnny Seo’s whole existence. “Can’t believe you’re graduating this year. You’re like, five.”

“I’m like, twenty-two,” Jaehyun huffed, equally as sarcastic in response, and he ended the call before Johnny could think of another good comeback. He ran through his contacts to find Sicheng’s name, praying silently that he wasn’t busy with Yuta at the moment.

(Even if he was, Jaehyun knew Sicheng would choose him over Yuta anytime.)

 

**_19.7.1 // 11:17 AM_ **

“Does he like chocolate?” Sicheng asked, bending his long legs to take a closer look to the sweets in the display cases. “I mean, chocolate’s the basic of the basics. What kind of people don’t like chocolate?”

“I don’t think he hates it,” Jaehyun said, shrugging, and like Sicheng, leaned in to check out the cakes. They both probably looked like lost overgrown kids out of their parents’ supervision. Choosing what sweets to buy was usually so fun, especially with Sicheng – it was just that last year the one who bought Taeyong’s cake was Johnny, and not Jaehyun. Five months and Jaehyun had never felt the need to ask Taeyong what flavor he liked, until now. “I think…”

Sicheng turned to look at Jaehyun when the older took much longer to elaborate than expected. “Jae,” he said, in a critical tone. “You don’t know, don’t you?”

Jaehyun pursed his lips, but his silence seemed enough for Sicheng, because the latter sighed and straightened himself, putting his hands in his jacket pockets.

“Eh,” Sicheng finally said, shrugging. “I also still don’t know what kind of sweets Yuta likes, and it’s been over two years now.”

Jaehyun stared. “I don’t think you _care_ what Yuta likes.”

“You’re right, I don’t.”

“Also, I don’t think Yuta even eats sweets.”

Sicheng turned to look at Jaehyun dead in the eye, and said with an alarmingly empty expression, “He eats me, though?”

Jaehyun wondered why he still bothered with Sicheng.

 

**_19.7.1 // 11:43 AM_ **

Twenty minutes later, after some more arguments with Sicheng over which color icing would look best on a snow cake (“Pink is such a good color.” “Fuck you, Sicheng, this isn’t a wedding cake.” “Just propose tonight then, it’s two birds with one stone.” “No!”), they both came out from the bakery, glad to be back under the sun. Sicheng was carrying the cake box as a child would carry a porcelain doll, and Jaehyun felt like he didn’t want to take that off him just yet.

“You wanna hang at my place?” Jaehyun asked. “I’ll probably be busy searching for a place to throw the party tonight. Your input might help. Great emphasize on _might_.”

Sicheng shrugged. “Sure.”

“You don’t have plans with your kinky boyfriend today?”

“Said kinky boyfriend is out of town,” Sicheng said, a little dolefully. Jaehyun turned to get a look at his best friend’s face, and Sicheng was staring back at him. “With Hansol,” he then added, when Jaehyun just raised an eyebrow.

“On what occasion?”

“Work, apparently.”

“You sure he’s not doing things behind your back?” Jaehyun asked, a little more carefully, but Sicheng didn’t seem to notice. “Dude, he’s going out of town for work with an _ex_.”

Sicheng snorted. “Better stays an ex or else he’s dead.”

 

**_19.7.1 // 12:19 PM_ **

“Are you sure you’re really not gonna propose?” Sicheng asked from the stairs, body leaning over the rail a little bit too dangerously. Jaehyun wondered if he had always been a lowkey adrenaline junkie or he’d recently developed dangerous habits because of Yuta’s whole shenanigans.

“Not today,” Jaehyun replied, putting the cake back in the fridge. He hoped Taeyong would go home to his own house today, and not his, or else he’d have to move the cake away. Problem was, he didn’t know where to move it to. “I’m a college student. _We_ are college students, Sicheng.”

“So you’re gonna wait until you graduate, then?”

“Probably. I don’t think about it much.”

“Why not?”

Jaehyun turned to look at Sicheng, who had now come down from the rail and seated himself down on the bottom step. He looked at Jaehyun with a curious face, and Jaehyun lost the desire to snap at him.

“Why don’t you?” Jaehyun asked instead.

Sicheng narrowed his eyes. “Yuta should be the one proposing, not me. Like hell I’m gonna get down on my knee and beg him to marry me. That’s _his_ job. I have my pride.”

Jaehyun snorted, but also felt a great surge of affection for Sicheng rushing in. This was why they were friends. This was why they were _still_ friends. “And what if he doesn’t,” he said.

“Then we’ll stay boyfriends forever, I guess,” Sicheng said simply.

 

**_19.7.1 // 12:53 PM_ **

Sicheng stayed for lunch because he had no one to cook for him back home. Jaehyun didn’t mind, since he didn’t trust Sicheng’s cooking skills that much and would rather have him around than facing the prospect of Sicheng burning down Yuta’s kitchen in an attempt to survive.

(“But to be fair,” Sicheng said, “He totally deserves having his kitchen burned down.”

“I second that, and I’d pay to see that happen, but I’d rather you not.”)

It was almost one when Taeyong called him. Sicheng handed the phone from the dining table to Jaehyun’s gloved hand, which was speckled with flour and salt.

“Hey,” Jaehyun said, as soon as he saw Taeyong’s name on his screen and took the call. He wondered why Taeyong called at this hour. He never did that, usually. “What’s wrong?”

“Why, can’t I call my boyfriend on my lunch break?” Taeyong teased, and Jaehyun rolled his eye, which was useless since Taeyong wouldn’t be able to see him anyway. “Miss you already, dimples.”

“Miss you more, hyung.”

Taeyong made a loud, mocking gasp. “Hyung? _Hyung_ , really? After all these years?”

“Well, what can I do? You hate cringey pet names as much as I do, cinnamon roll.”

Sicheng made a gagging sound from the table, but Jaehyun shushed him. He placed the phone on the table again and took off his plastic gloves, before walking out from the kitchen.

“Who was that?” Taeyong asked, when Jaehyun was out of Sicheng’s hearing range (he thought). “Did you bring another man home while I’m not around, dimples?”

“No, that was Sicheng, oh my god,” Jaehyun said dryly. “Yuta hyung is out of town, so he’s a lost child now. Can we adopt him?”

“I heard that, Jung.”

“Aw, shit,” Jaehyun said, laughing guilelessly, and walked further away from the kitchen and toward the front door. Unless Sicheng had superhuman hearings, he shouldn’t be able to hear Jaehyun from the porch, at least. “Okay, but seriously though, what’s up?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to call,” Taeyong said, and Jaehyun heard the elevator dinged from the other end of the line. Taeyong was probably getting down to the ground floor. “Just met an old high school friend, actually.”

Jaehyun hummed. “Did you?”

“Yeah. He went for a check-up and we met in the waiting room. It’s nothing important, but it made me think a lot.”

“About what?”

“About high school,” Taeyong said smoothly, easily, and Jaehyun questioned himself if he had been planning to talk about this for a long time, just hadn’t the chance to. Yet. “About us.”

“What about us?”

Now Jaehyun could hear the faint voices of pedestrians and some cars rushing through the traffic. Taeyong must already be in the lobby.

“Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with us,” Taeyong said, and Jaehyun felt the lump that was going up in his throat fading. “I just… I just never got the chance to apologize for what I did back then.”

“But you didn’t do anything wrong back then,” Jaehyun said, confused.

“I think I did,” Taeyong insisted. “Youngho said I thought you hated me. I think he got it all mixed up – I thought you thought I hated you.”

Jaehyun blinked. “What? But did you?”

Taeyong let out a half-choking, half-laughing sort of a sound. “Jaehyun, how could someone like _me_ hate someone like you? No, I didn’t, idiot. Never did, never have done, and probably won’t ever do.”

“Oh. Then what’s the deal?”

“The reason why… why I appeared standoffish,” Taeyong said, and Jaehyun winced when he heard it, because _standoffish_ was the word he used to describe Taeyong a lot back in high school whenever he and Johnny was discussing their relationship, “Is because I didn’t want to weird you out. I didn’t want to weird people out in general, but especially you. That was why.”

Jaehyun was so speechless, he forgot how to breathe. Then he suffocated, and coughed out his lungs. Taeyong whined immediately.

“You’re overreacting again,” he accused, and Jaehyun, still coughing, tried to deny this.

“No, I swear I’m not! I just choked.”

“On what, the fucking air?”

“Well yeah, but—“

“ _Jaehyun_ ,” Taeyong interrupted. “I wasn’t always this way, okay? I was much more difficult back then. High school was hard. Don’t hold a grudge over who I was when I was in that hell of a place. I’m a grown man now.”

“Aw,” Jaehyun said, and he smiled, wider than he wanted, wider than he planned. “Awww, sure you are, you’re twenty-four.”

Taeyong sighed loudly, ignoring Jaehyun’s teasing. “We should’ve talked back then. I was stupid. I mean, I saw you hanging with Youngho a lot, so I should’ve concluded that you’re a lost cause, too. There was literally no reason for me to be that way.”

“I’m a lost cause—“ Jaehyun stopped himself, preferring not to finish that. “Okay. Seriously. Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop thinking about the past. It doesn’t matter anymore. We’re _here_ right now, aren’t we? I love you and you love me. The fact that you were pointlessly insecure and I was a ridiculous coward doesn’t matter anymore.”

“You were what?”

“I was a ridiculous coward,” Jaehyun said. “Hey, I said that didn’t matter, didn’t I? Just go eat your damn lunch and come home soon.”

Taeyong laughed out loud. “Okay. See you later?”

“See you later.”

Jaehyun stayed, waiting for Taeyong to end the call, but he didn’t. There was a full second before Taeyong spoke again.

“No I love yous?”

“ _You_ should be the one saying that to me first since you’re older. _And_ since it’s your birthday.”

“That argument doesn’t even make sense, Jaehyun.“

“I love you.”

Taeyong paused. Jaehyun wondered if he was mirroring this dumb, lovesick smile he was doing himself out there. He wondered if Taeyong was still feeling the butterflies, now not tickling the inside of his stomach, but filling his chest with comforting liquid just like warm honey.

“Yeah, I love you, too,” he finally said, and Jaehyun didn’t miss the honesty, the genuine affection dripping in every word, in his voice. Satisfied, he ended the call.

At least Jaehyun got to say he loved him for the last time.

 

**_19.7.1 // 13:29 PM_ **

Jaehyun received another call almost halfway past one. This time it was from Taeil – which was weird, because usually Taeil never called him first and if he did, he’d be more likely to use Johnny’s or Taeyong’s phone.

“Who is it?” Jaehyun yelled at Sicheng, who was still sitting on standby next to the dining table. “If it’s Doyoungie just ignore it, he’s been trying to get me to come to one of his stupid workshops—“

“It’s from someone named Taeil hyung,” Sicheng said, and Jaehyun’s gloved hands nearly slipped from their place on the stove. “I think it’s important.”

“How do you know what’s important and what’s not,” Jaehyun commented, but he still took the phone anyway. He was damn popular today, that was for sure.

“Hey, hyung,” he was just saying, but Taeil’s breathless voice cut him off immediately.

“Jaehyun!” Taeil said – _yelled_ , really, and he also never yelled, so that was really new. “Jaehyun, where are you?”

“Me?” Jaehyun asked, confused by Taeil’s abrupt yelling. “I’m home, with Sicheng. Hyung, what’s wrong? Why do you sound so—“

“Jaehyun, I don’t know how to say this but—I think you need to keep calm first but—please come here. To the hospital. As fast as you can. Please. It’s Taeyong.”

At the mention of Taeyong’s name, Jaehyun felt his heart sinking inside of his chest, and his phone nearly slipped away from his fingers. He’d unconsciously connected Taeil’s – his usually calm and collected hyung – panicked voice, the mention of hospital, and Taeyong’s name. Apparently his phone _did_ slip from his hands, because Sicheng, thanks to his great reflex, was suddenly off the chair and he caught it by an inch from being smashed against the floor with a shout. Now visibly upset, he put it back in Jaehyun’s hands, keeping it there with his own.

Taeil continued, in a shriller voice. “There was an accident…”

Jaehyun didn’t stay to let Taeil finish.

 

**_19.7.1 // 13:32 PM_ **

Sicheng insisted they should take the train, even when Jaehyun wanted to run to the hospital. He had to hold Jaehyun by the chest to stop him from just dashing away right off the porch.

“That’s fucking crazy, man, it’s three miles away,” Sicheng tried to reason, fingernails digging into Jaehyun’s skin even from the fabric of his shirt. He was sweating just as much as Jaehyun was. “Or at least a taxi. Let’s use a taxi.”

“Tell the driver to floor it!” Jaehyun shouted, when Sicheng managed to get them a taxi from the busy street. He was still yelling when Sicheng pushed him in the car. “Make it in five! Please!”

“You know that’s impossible,” Sicheng said. “It’ll take ten at least. Sit down, Jaehyun! We’re not gonna get anywhere if you won’t stop flailing!”

 

**_19.7.1 // 13:39 PM_ **

Jaehyun’s knee wouldn’t stop shaking. His palm was wet with sweat. The traffic jam was insane, and he was so close to exploding, just like a nuclear bomb. Sicheng had his hand on his shoulders, and Jaehyun didn’t shrug him away, but it wasn’t helping.

Jaehyun counted to ten, and then he said, “Fuck it,” and stormed out of the car.

He could faintly hear Sicheng shouting out his name in despair behind him, but Jaehyun didn’t care. He didn’t spare a glance. He just ran.

 

**_19.7.1 // 13:43 PM_ **

Jaehyun felt like he could no longer taste air, respiratory sistem no longer giving it access to keep him alive when he stumbled around almost blindly. He could barely care, too. The only reason he wasn’t dead out of suffocation yet was because Taeyong was probably in a much worse condition than he was.

He spotted Taeil standing near the receptionist desk, hands clasped together as his eyes darted around. He looked beyond nervous, and it made Jaehyun’s mood plunge even further down.

He didn’t even feel his feet moving until he nearly crashed against the shorter guy and grabbed his shoulder. “ _Hyung_ ,” Jaehyun breathed, his voice totally not his, but again, he didn’t care. “How is he? Where is he?”

“Jaehyun!” Taeil exclaimed in surprise. “You’re already here—oh god, what happened to your face?”

(Jaehyun might or might have not rammed his own face against the glass door earlier in his hurry. He now had a split lip. Worth it.)

“That barely matters, hyung! Tell me where he is!” Jaehyun demanded, and Taeil grimaced in pain when Jaehyun shook him too hard, and he’d probably have to apologize for it later (or else Johnny woud deck him right on the face, too). “Hyung, I can’t do this, where is he? It wasn’t bad, wasn’t it? Everything’s gonna be okay, right?”

Taeil’s pained face was everything that despair needed to break Jaehyun from the inside out.

“It was bad,” Taeil explained, in a very small voice that Jaehyun’s ringing ears had a hard time catching. “It was so bad, he’s losing so much blood.”

Jaehyun could faint right there from the dizziness he felt in his head, the heaviness in his chest, and the trembling of his feet. He could lose balance right there and just forget so much bad things were happening, even though it was supposed to be such a great day, it was Taeyong’s birthday for god’s sake – but Jaehyun didn’t.

“Hyung,” he simply said, and Taeil pointed toward the hallway, to the emergency room. “Hyung, come with me.”

Taeil did, and that was the best decision Jaehyun made for the whole day.

 

**_19.7.1 // 13:44 PM_ **

A heartbeat flatlined.

 

**_19.7.1 // 13:45 PM_ **

Jaehyun nearly kicked the door off its hinge entering. The room was much like a murder scene – there was some blood on the floor, and the bed where Taeyong was on was also red. Taeyong’s torso was covered in so many white things that Jaehyun’s hazy sight couldn’t make out what they were, but on those white things were still some blotches of dark red, blooming like spider lilies, ridding Jaehyun of his already diminishing hope.

There were people in white crowding around the bed, talking in quick, frightened voices among themselves with words Jaehyun couldn’t really catch, and the room smelled so strongly of medicine and blood that it nearly made him throw up. But he didn’t, because Taeyong was there, his eyes closed, his face garlanded with more red and purple and black, and that he wasn’t moving.

He wasn’t moving, he wasn’t breathing, and Jaehyun felt Taeil’s thin frame against his back, like a weak anchor, like a dwindling lifeline.

His eyes caught the ECG machine on a nearby table – the line was flat. As flat as Jaehyun’s own mind, as flat as his own faith, as flat as his whole being.

 _Ah_ , Jaehyun thought. _Ah, shit._

One of the doctors turned to look at him and said, “Sir, you can’t be here—“

“No, wait,” Jaehyun said, and he abruptly laughed, he laughed at the absurdity of it all, he laughed so, so loud that it sent a shiver down his body, because Taeyong _couldn’t_ be dead, he _couldn’t_ die, it was his birthday and the universe should never let someone die on their birthday ever. It was a day dedicated to celebrate the birth of someone, what the fuck was the world doing, taking the person right back out? It all didn’t add up, really. “No, no, no, this isn’t real.”

“Jaehyun, let’s get out,” Taeil pleaded. His arms around Jaehyun’s chest felt strangely sturdy, strong enough to drag him back. Jaehyun blinked, and the bluriness in his vision cleared, just for it to come back again. Something was wet on the back of his shirt, and Jaehyun insentiently pondered, _oh, is that Taeil hyung’s tears?_ “Let’s get out and call Johnny, he’ll know what to do in this situation.“

“This isn’t real!” Jaehyun screamed, when Taeil dragged him out of the ER. “This isn’t real, he can’t die! He can’t die, hyung, it’s his birthday!”

“Jaehyun,” Taeil said again, holding Jaehyun tighter. “Jaehyun, Jaehyun, Jaehyun. Don’t break, please, don’t break now, I won’t be able to fix you.”

“I don’t want to be fixed! I don’t need to!” Jaehyun yelled, and he wanted to shrug off Taeil, get him off his back, and storm right back in. “I want the universe to fix _him!_ Bring him back! This is fucking unfair, bring him back or I swear I’ll burn the whole world down!”

“Jaehyun,” Taeil besought again, and Jaehyun could feel the strength in the older’s arms falling, as if it was his own. Or maybe it _was_ , because Jaehyun didn’t remember how, but he just ended up on the floor. His legs had given out, his body surrendering while his mind was still thrashing for justice in reality, and Taeil was holding him up with what little power he had left. “You can’t burn the whole world down. You’ll burn us, too. You’ll burn yourself.”

And maybe Jaehyun still didn’t care, still didn’t want to yield, and still wanted to yell it out until the universe yield to him instead. He wished to die, too, wished to chase after Taeyong, didn’t even care if it meant crossing worlds, he’d do it, run until he could grasp Taeyong by the hand and pull him back, or maybe if he couldn’t, he’d just follow him. To the end of the world, whichever world was it. Jaehyun was all set and unprepared at the same time.

Maybe he did feel all that, but Taeil’s voice made him weak, made him lose all those, because at that moment Jaehyun realized: if he didn’t let Taeil soothe him down, who would? There was no one else left in the world that cared for him the way Taeyong did, and now that he was gone, Jaehyun was lost, too. Taeil went looking for him, going all the way out of his comfort zone with a flashlight to find Jaehyun amidst the dark woodland that was Jaehyun’s own self-denial, because he felt like it was his _responsibility_ to do so, because he felt like that was what Taeyong would want him to do, anyway.

So Jaehyun gave in, let Taeil find him, and wept in his embrace. He wept in Taeil’s arms as his whole word came crushing down all around him, creating a vast ocean of sorrow and desolation that would soon become his prison.

 

**_20.10.8 // 05:21 AM_ **

Jaehyun doesn’t know why, but this morning he wakes up with tears on his cheeks.

He wakes up and feels the wetness of his pillow against his ear, then struggles to prop himself up, and wipes something warm on his face. A few drips down to his mouth, and he tastes the foreign yet familiar saltiness. Foreign, because Jaehyun hasn’t cried in almost a year, and familiar, because the last time he did, he’d swallowed so many of his own tears that it felt like he was drowning in seawater. Jaehyun still stares under the dim light of his bedlamp, the wet fingertips glimmering slightly.

He doesn’t even remember what he was dreaming about, but he could guess.

He stays like that. He switches the pillow upside down and rests his head on the dry side, but he stays there, just thinking about his feelings, about the things that have happened to him, about whether or not he deserved losing so much, because if he’s really, really being honest, Jaehyun deserves _at least_ Taeyong’s healing presence after all those disparaging loneliness he’d felt in his younger years. He deserves at least that.

If the law of the universe was really just in its might, Taeyong shouldn’t have died then, and Jaehyun shouldn’t have felt so much pain right after. If the law of the universe was really just in its decision, why the hell wouldn’t life let the both of them live in peace?

Jaehyun stays on the bed until much, much later, until he’s tired of thinking again, until the recurring thoughts become dull and wearing.

 

**_20.10.8 // 05:34 AM_ **

Jaehyun finally gets up, and immediately catches sight of the book.

It’s still resting on top of his bedside table, cover facing the ceilings. Jaehyun remembers skimming through it last night, not ingesting anything, just tracing his hand over Taeyong’s handwritings, feeling a strange sense of connection as his fingers went over Taeyong’s name on the first page and the notes he left on the margin of the rest.

Taeyong had a peculiar style of writing. He would often wrote in what Doyoung would call “half-assed cursive”, but Jaehyun thinks it’s cute. Taeyong’s handwritings are direct and messy and all over the place (well, he _was_ a doctor, that’s kinda a given), but the words he wrote spilled right out of his mind, vocally unsaid thoughts because he didn’t say everything he went over, what he believed, what he assumed, what he wanted to tell, but didn’t, or couldn’t; the words he kept safely inside of his own mind, behind bars, anaesthetized, but never completely dead, never going away. Jaehyun adores these, adores the small moments when he could peek into what few things left of Taeyong’s observance.

He didn’t just leave notes on the margin. Sometimes he would underline a few words, or maybe sentences, with a fading red marker that he must’ve had to shake a few times just so the ink would come out. Jaehyun fawns over these things he underlined, eats up every word and sentence and lines, every drip of contemplations that Taeyong had left behind.

It wasn’t strange that Taeyong would love a book about grieving so much, too. Jaehyun guesses that those things he emphasized so strongly on were the things he found relatable, the things he was so painfully familiar with. “Grieving isn’t just about death,” Taeil once said, in one of their sessions, if Jaehyun remembers correctly, “It’s about losing someone in general. It’s better to lose someone to death than to lose them to life.”

Maybe that was why Taeyong liked this book so much, because he grieved for the people he’d lost to life, the people he’d left and the people who left him. He grieved for the people he once loved, just like Jaehyun did.

And now Jaehyun grieves for him.

 

**_20.10.8 // 05:39 AM_ **

Jaehyun didn’t notice it the night before, but when his hands slip and the book falls on his chest, a piece of paper slides out from the pages. He catches it by instinct before it flies down to the floor, the paper a bit creased. He brings it closer to his face so he can read it better.

It’s Taeyong’s handwriting, too, but it isn’t comments or notes this time. It’s a series of words that Jaehyun doesn’t know Taeyong liked, but obviously did, because the paper is there between his fingers as a proof.

 

_Death has no power / to keep apart / a love forged so deeply / in a person’s heart._

 

Jaehyun suddenly chokes, because he could hear it in Taeyong’s voice, he could hear every word spoken in Taeyong’s voice, even if it’s not possible. He could feel the smoothness of his voice washing over his skin, his tired eyes, his trembling lips. He could feel it – these words are talking to him, crushing him to pieces and patching him back right after.

 

_Death creates a veil / and shields us from view / but death can do nothing / to disconnect me from you._

 

And Jaehyun remembers what – who – his dreams were about.

He remembers and it leaks right out from his eyes, from his lungs to the roof of his mouth, from every pore of skin, from every bits and pieces of his body and heart and slumbering feelings; they spill right out, all of them, all of them, in a deliberate, crushing pace, choking him further, cutting him off from reality, and he sinks deeper, deeper until he feels his back hitting rock bottom.

 

**_TL, 2016, 5:02 AM_ **

 

**_20.10.8 // 07:13 AM_ **

Mark greets him when he shows up for work. The younger has just arrived as well, from the look of it – he’s fixing the hem of his lab coat when Jaehyun comes in, and he’s still in his sneakers.

“Hi, hyung,” Mark says, and Jaehyun tries not to make it too obvious that he’s just bawled his eyes out two hours ago. Mark thinks Jaehyun’s coping well, so he doesn’t need that thought to change. Worse yet, Mark could tell Taeil. “We’re still eating lunch later, right?”

“What?” Jaehyun asks, and his mind goes blank for a moment there, because has he made plans with Mark lately? His mistake, because that means he’s dropping the already-dwindling control over his facial expression, and Mark is staring right at him, so. Yeah. There goes.

Jaehyun watches as Mark’s face falters, and curses inwardly.

“Hyung,” Mark says again, now in a feebler voice. “Are you okay?”

Jaehyun reminds himself of how sensitive Mark is when it comes to his (dis)ability to comfort people in need, so he forces himself to smile and waves him off.

“What are you talking about?” Jaehyun asks, and he tries to make his voice sounds lighter, like nothing is bothering him at all, like nothing is sitting on the bottom of his stomach and trying to claw its way out and tear his heart out in the process. “I’m fine. And yeah, let’s eat later, kid.”

“Are you sure?” Mark asks again, when Jaehyun pushes past him to get to his locker. “You look like…”

“Look like _what_ , Mark?” Jaehyun snaps, and he stops dead in his track, not even reaching his locker but Mark’s hesitancy is getting to him so much. “Say it.”

Mark obviously thinks that he’s overstepped Jaehyun’s boundaries, because he hunched his shoulders together and dig his nails into his palm. Jaehyun expects him to back down immediately, to just say “sorry, it’s nothing” and run away, but it doesn’t happen. Mark stands still, and though he looks like he’d rather die than to be there, he catches Jaehyun’s eye like a true champion, and Jaehyun’s heart flutters, because wow, Mark Lee.

“You look like you’ve just cried,” Mark says at last, and Jaehyun exhales. “And I was wondering… I’ve _been_ wondering if you’ve never really recovered at all, hyung, and you were just so good at keeping things inside, and I want to stop turning a blind eye to that.”

There is a heavy silence right after.

 _Impressive_ , he thinks. Mark Lee just outdid himself after years of keeping away from confrontations, meanwhile Jaehyun can’t even think about Taeyong’s death that happened well over a year ago without feeling extreme swell of suicidal inclinations. Truly impressive.

“Mark,” Jaehyun says at last, after he gets over his own surprise, and Mark flinches, clearly expecting Jaehyun to yell at him again. “Mark, you know what? You’re absolutely right.”

“W-what?”

“You’re right,” Jaehyun says, and he drops his bag to the floor and drops himself to one of the benches. “You’re right. I’ve never really recovered, and I’m good at hiding things, and you’re right for pointing that out.”

Mark lets out a breathy laugh. “You’re not mad at me?”

“No,” Jaehyun says, and he rubs his eyes, thinking that maybe he has to wash his face again so others won’t be picking up hints, too. “Really, Mark. I’m not mad at you. Come sit here and let’s talk. And maybe pick a place to eat for later.”

Mark obliges immediately, face lighting up when Jaehyun places an arm around his shoulder as soon as he sits down.

“Just don’t tell Taeil hyung about this,” Jaehyun says. “He thought I was getting better. I _am_ getting better. I am, I swear. It’s just… earlier this morning I, uh, lost control.”

Mark nods eagerly. “Okay,” he says. “My lips are sealed. You lost control this morning, but Taeil hyung won’t know about it at all.”

“I’m okay, though. Things are getting better.”

“Really?” Mark asks, and he tilts his head to look at Jaehyun’s face – probably checking if Jaehyun is lying or not. Insolent kid. “You know, hyung, you don’t have to spell it out. I mean, if you wanted to talk, you would’ve told Taeil hyung already, anyway. I just want to know if you’re okay.”

“I’m okay, generally,” Jaehyun says, frowning and fixes his gaze on a creasing on Mark’s sleeve. He abstractedly evens it while Mark watches. “I’m okay now. I wouldn’t go to work if I wasn’t okay.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Mark responds, nodding once again. “I know I shouldn’t be saying this to you, hyung, especially because I’m no doctor or therapist or anyone smart enough to know about these kind of things—“

Jaehyun sighs. “Just spit it out, dumbass.”

“You will get another chance,” Mark says, in a slightly dreamy tone that Jaehyun doesn’t hear him use often. “You will get another chance on another day. I mean, the book Hyuck is reading doesn’t specify what kind of chance, but I think that saying is appropriate for this situation.”

Jaehyun latches on two things concurrently, which are: a) Mark is actually giving him _an_ _advice_ , and b) the word ‘book’ and ‘Hyuck’ together out from his lips. Jaehyun chooses to settle his response on the second, of course.

“ _’The book Hyuck is reading’_?” Jaehyun repeats, grinning from ear to ear, and Mark visibly flushes red. “Is there something else about Hyuck that I need to know, Mark?”

“So obviously _not_ ,” Mark denies right away, shrugging Jaehyun’s arm off his shoulders in the process of standing up. Jaehyun still looks at him with raised brows. “We just—we just kinda become friends, that’s it.”

“Kinda?” Jaehyun says, raising his eyebrows even higher. “That sounds vague…ly interesting. I’d like to heasr more about that.”

Mark fidgets from the spot he stood, before he just gives up and dashes away. “My shift is starting soon, see you at lunch!”

It probably doesn’t even cross Mark’s mind that Jaehyun could just easily bring this up again later, at lunch, but whatever.

 

**_20.10.8 // 07:21 AM_ **

Jaehyun is putting on his uniform when the weight of Mark’s words truly hits him.

_“You will get another chance on another day.”_

He stops buttoning up his shirt, stares at the small mirror glued on the back of his locker door, at his own reflection staring back at him with a disordered face. He blinks, and his reflection blinks, too, and Jaehyun suddenly thinks, _oh_.

He _does_ get another chance. He literally does.

The answer has always been there all along.

 

**_20.10.8 // 19:27 PM_ **

As soon as Jaehyun comes home, he sits down on his bed with a pen in one hand and Taeyong’s book in another. His phone is standing by silently on the pillow as Jaehyun scribbles down on a new piece of paper:

_2018: Taeyong lends me a book? – 2020: the book is still with me._

That could mean a lot of thing. Jaehyun doesn’t like reading, and it hasn’t changed much, really, but the fact that he’s holding on Taeyong’s book right now when he is very sure he has never seen Taeyong actually lending it to him is true, hefty, and outright. It could mean a lot of things, but it could also mean that Taeyong lent the book to _another_ him from _another_ timeline, and that somehow revises things in his current one.

If such a simple deed could do this much, then what if, what _if_ Jaehyun tries to make a bigger change? Saving a lost life, for example. A lost life that never deserves to be lost in the first place.

_Taeyong’s death: July 1, 2019, 13:44_

The other Jaehyun still has over a year to Taeyong’s designated death. If Jaehyun could remind him, somehow, warn him about the upcoming disaster, he could stop Taeyong from dying in the first place. Assuming he believes him, though. Assuming past Jaehyun would be able to trust his future self enough. If he doesn’t, then things end right there. But if he does…

Jaehyun looks at his phone, which screen is dark and quiet. He wants nothing more than just to see it light up with his own name, because he now sees it as a new ray of hope, a dangling key to keep himself from drowning over and over again.

 

**_18.3.22 // 13:42 PM_ **

Jaehyun got out from the classroom on an alleged “bathroom break”, but he just went to the emptiest hallway he could find and waited for the next call. He waited, and waited, and checked his watch, and waited, until the second ticked by and become minutes.

The hour came and go, but his phone didn’t make the call.

 

**_18.3.23 // 13:42 PM_ **

The alarm in his phone went off at 13:40, and Jaehyun was already ready to go out of the café and to the street, or maybe once again to the bathroom. He held his breath when the time was looming, but watched blankly as the minute hit 44, and yet he was still on Instagram.

His phone didn’t make the call today, either.

 

**_18.3.24 // 13:42 PM_ **

Not today.

 

**_18.3.27 // 13:42 PM_ **

Also not today.

 

**_18.4.2 // 13:42 PM_ **

Still not another call.

 

**_18.4.10 // 13:42 PM_ **

 

**_18.4.27 // 13:42 PM_ **

Jaehyun tried to call Future Jaehyun’s number, but the call button wouldn’t work. Which was fucking unreasonable, since it used to work by itself without him having to tap it furiously just like he just did now.

 

**_18.5.4 // 13:42 PM_ **

 

**_18.6.29 // 13:42 PM_ **

Jaehyun was breathless, but he still could taste Taeyong on his tongue and the bottom of his lips whenever he breathed. He touched his own face while he stared at the mirror, feeling the heat washing off slowly, and wondered if the other him felt like his heart was so close to exploding too, just like this, when he first kissed Taeyong, in his own timeline.

Like the day before and the day before yesterday and the days before that yesterday, too, today there was no call made.

 

**_18.7.22 // 13:42 PM_ **

****

**_18.8.13 // 13:42 PM_ **

****

**_18.9.25 // 13:42 PM_ **

Jaehyun didn’t forget the occurrence, but he gradually forgot the thoughts and feelings it used to give him.

 

**_18.10.13 // 13:42 PM_ **

 

**_18.11.18 // 13:42 PM_ **

Taeyong graduated today – he looked really good in black – and Jaehyun counted his success: he brought him flowers, only made him sneeze once, made him laugh twice with his not-so-good puns, and kissed him underneath the tree on the field where the first Jaehyun asked the first Taeyong out.

(He didn’t know that, of course, but the tree felt like a good place to kiss Taeyong under.)

 

**_18.12.23 // 13:42 PM_ **

 

**_19.01.13 // 13:42 PM_ **

 

**_19.02.14 // 13:42 PM_ **

Jaehyun used to hate Valentine’s Day, but maybe not so much anymore now that he knew he would get something – _someone_ , really – that wasn’t chocolate on his birthday.

 

**_19.03.8 // 13:42 PM_ **

 

**_19.04.13 // 13:42 PM_ **

 

**_19.05.27 // 13:42 PM_ **

****

**_19.06.21 // 13:42 PM_ **

 

**_19.06.29 // 13:42 PM_ **

 

**_19.06.30 // 13:42 PM_ **

 

**_19.7.1 // 06:04 AM_ **

Jaehyun woke up with Taeyong cuddling up to him for warmth, black strands of hair tickling his cheek when he opened his eyes. The older was already awake, too, looking down at their intertwined hands on his hips, as if in awe. It was a bit weird, seeing Taeyong with messy hair and sleep pasted on his lashes, because usually he always woke up early and took a shower before coming back to the bed with Jaehyun.

Then Jaehyun realized what day it was.

“Fuck, it’s Monday,” he said, and Taeyong was shocked out of his musing, laughing softly after he caught Jaehyun’s gaze. He pressed his forehead against Jaehyun’s and smiled.

“Don’t whine, I’m right here,” he said, caressing Jaehyun’s cheek, and Jaehyun felt so, so infatuated, so damn smitten that he could just die like this and he wouldn’t even mind. Then he leaned in, as if to kiss him, and Jaehyun closed his eyes again, but when he didn’t feel Taeyong’s lips he quickly opened his eyes and saw Taeyong sporting a small, knowing smile, obviously pulling back while Jaehyun was closing his eyes.

He frowned.

“What’s wrong?” Taeyong asked gently. He didn’t sound teasing at all, but Jaehyun knew he was. He _definitely_ was. “Not up for a good day?”

Jaehyun scowled. “I thought you were going to kiss me.”

“I’ll consider that after you’ve brushed your teeth,” Taeyong said, and Jaehyun buried his face in the pillow with muffled groan. “After we both wash our teeth, actually. Come down, I’ll make you toasts.”

“I don’t like toasts.”

“You like it when it’s _my_ toasts, shut up.”

The mattress dipped as Taeyong untangled himself from Jaehyun, and for a moment there, Jaehyun’s chest hurt, irrationally so, abruptly so, when Taeyong left the bed. It hurt the same way it hurt when Jaehyun visited his mother’s grave, hurt the same way it hurt when he flipped over pages of his yearbook and saw pictures of him with old friends that he didn’t talk to anymore.

The pain came suddenly and left without a warning, too. Jaehyun propped himself up to breathe, and when he saw Taeyong staring at him, with so much love soaking out from his obsidian eyes like cascade, with so much fondness tinted on his divine face, it went away, and he dissolved.

It was almost ridiculous, the way Jaehyun was so infatuated with him, and the fact that Taeyong was just equally as infatuated as he was.

“I love you,” Jaehyun said, out of nowhere, and Taeyong’s lips split into a wide, teethy grin. Jaehyun half-expected him to tease again, make fun of his sudden, seemingly random confession, but he didn’t. Instead he brushed his hair out of his face and said to him:

“I love you, too.”

 

**_19.7.1 // 06:17 AM_ **

Jaehyun remembered what day it was when he looked over at the desk calendar he bought from Doyoung’s store while brushing his teeth, and saw that Doyoung had circled the date neatly with an obnoxious purple marker, with a small heart over the number.

 _Taeyongie’s_ , it read, and Jaehyun cursed himself for ever forgetting it in the first place.

He practically ran down the stairs, a bit of toothpaste still specked on his chin, and nearly crashed against Taeyong, who went out of the kitchen with a fork in hand and was standing in the hallway, probably trying to find out why Jaehyun was making such a ruckus. Jaehyun’s bare feet skidded into a stop before he could actually sent himself (and Taeyong) against the nearest wall, and he grabbed Taeyong’s hands with his damp ones, and yelled, “What day do you think today is?”

Taeyong jerked back, dazed. “Uh, Monday?”

“Taeyong, it’s the first of July.”

He blinked. “So?”

“You stupid, it’s your birthday!”

It was as if Jaehyun could see the gears working inside of Taeyong’s head clicking together, and he gasped. “It’s my birthday,” he echoed, in an amazed tone, and then he laughed out loud, and Jaehyun did, too.

“You totally forgot, didn’t you?” Jaehyun asked, a moment later, after Taeyong was done laughing.

“I swear June just started like, last week. How did it go to July this fast?”

“Obviously your sense of time is dwindling again, you workaholic,” Jaehyun said, and he grinned. “Wonderful, you have kept yourself fed well enough for twenty four years. That’s got to be an achievement.”

“I’ve survived on two hours of sleep every day for twenty four years straight, you can bet that’s a damn achievement right there.”

Taeyong wiped the toothpaste off Jaehyun’s chin and smiled.

“You’re the worst doctor there ever is,” Jaehyun said, and Taeyong laughed again, unoffended. “But I still love you so much.”

This time, when Jaehyun dipped his face to kiss Taeyong, he could actually feel the older’s lips against his own. Nobody pulled back this time because the both of them had already brushed their teeth (though Taeyong had kissed him countless of times when they woke up too, not including the, uh, less than appropriate morning activities they had sometimes, so his argument earlier was _so_ invalid). He could actually feel Taeyong kissing him back in the usual gentleness, the usual carefulness (it would usually take a while to make Taeyong be _less_ _careful_ with his mouth) and tasted his own toothpaste on Taeyong’s tongue.

So why did the pain come back into his chest, raking unseen nails down his lungs and make his feet tremble with unfamiliar sorrow?

 

**_19.7.1 // 08:14 AM_ **

As soon as Taeyong left for work – his lips a little bit redder than usual, Jaehyun didn’t know how would his coworkers respond to that, but he could barely care – he whipped out his phone and went to call Johnny.

As usual, the older answered in the first two rings, even though he should be at work right now. He guessed that maybe high school teachers could take a break in between classes to answer calls, too.

“What bakery makes the best cake around here?” Jaehyun immediately sputtered, as soon as Johnny picked up the phone. Johnny didn’t even ask what Jaehyun was on about.

“Chill down, hotshot, Taeyong doesn’t even like cake. Don’t you know that?”

Jaehyun blinked owlishly. “But we bought him cake last year.”

“Yeah, and _we_ ended up finishing it,” Johnny continued on, not even losing one single beat. “Try something different this time. Let’s just make him a full-scale surprise party. The adult version, though.”

“What, you gonna take him to a strippers club or something?” Jaehyun snorted at the thought of Taeyong, that obstructive, sensible Taeyong, getting lost in a dark clubroom full of half-naked people, but then he shuddered. He didn’t want that, not really.

“ _Dude_ ,” Johnny said, and he sounded so done with Jaehyun then that he wondered why Johnny didn’t just end the call. “I mean with alcohol and stuff. That kind of adult. Maybe. And food. Strippers club didn’t even cross my mind, mind you.”

“But it’s… I feel like it’s still lacking without any cake,” Jaehyun said sadly.

Johnny heaved a long, loud sigh. “Fine. Go with Sicheng and find us some cakes.”

“ _Some_ cakes?”

“Okay, not some. I meant just one. We barely finished last year’s tart.”

Jaehyun brightened. “Okay!”

“God, you’re such a kid,” Johnny said, and even if he sounded tired, he sounded fond, too. He wouldn’t admit it, just like how Jaehyun wouldn’t admit how grateful he was of Johnny Seo’s whole existence. “Can’t believe you’re graduating this year. You’re like, five.”

“I’m like, twenty-two,” Jaehyun huffed, equally as sarcastic in response, and he ended the call before Johnny could think of another good comeback. He ran through his contacts to find Sicheng’s name, praying silently that he wasn’t busy with Yuta at the moment.

(Even if he was, Jaehyun knew Sicheng would choose him over Yuta anytime.)

Yet when his finger stopped on Sicheng’s number, he didn’t call the guy immediately. There was another feeling of distress inside of him. This time it wasn’t painful, but it was uncomfortable, just like a phlegm that wouldn’t come out and was instead stuck in his throat. Jaehyun actually grabbed his neck and tried to cough, but nothing came out. It was a _feeling_ , not something physical, which made it even more perplexing.

In a very strange sense, Jaehyun had a nauseating sensation that he’d done this before, that he’d gone out for birthday cake with Sicheng somewhere else, somewhen else. But it didn’t make sense, because last year he didn’t buy cake with Sicheng, and not even the year before that, and so on. Sicheng didn’t like cake that much, anyway – he ate slices sometimes, yes, but he was more into ice cream than anything. So Jaehyun definitely didn’t go out for cakes with him, and he was sure he didn’t go with any of his other friends, either.

So what was it?

 

**_19.7.1 // 11:17 AM_ **

“Does he like chocolate?” Sicheng asked, bending his long legs to take a closer look to the sweets in the display cases. “I mean, chocolate’s the basic of the basics. What kind of people don’t like chocolate?”

It took Jaehyun a few seconds to register what Sicheng was saying, and more seconds to think of an answer. He still thought of the strange sensations he’d felt earlier at home – it was so confounding that he still mulled over it even now.

“I don’t think he hates it,” he finally said, shrugging, and like Sicheng, leaned in to check out the cakes. They both probably looked like lost overgrown kids out of their parents’ supervision. “I think he likes…”

Sicheng turned to look at Jaehyun when the older took much longer to elaborate than expected. “Jae,” he said, in a critical tone. “You don’t know, don’t you?”

Jaehyun pursed his lips, but his silence seemed enough for Sicheng, because the latter sighed and straightened himself, putting his hands in his jacket pockets.

“Eh,” Sicheng finally said, shrugging. “I also still don’t know what kind of sweets Yuta likes, and it’s been over two years now.”

Jaehyun stared. “I don’t think you _care_ what Yuta likes.”

“You’re right, I don’t.”

“Also, I don’t think Yuta even eats sweets.”

Sicheng turned to look at Jaehyun dead in the eye, and said with an alarmingly empty expression, “He eats me though?”

There it was again, another feeling that he’d heard Sicheng said this (adversity) once before, in this exact bakery, in this exact spot, in the same exact pose, in the exact same tone, but it couldn’t be, because this was the first time they visited this bakery.

Also, Jaehyun wondered why he still bothered with Sicheng.

 

**_19.7.1 // 11:43 AM_ **

Twenty minutes later, after some more arguments with Sicheng over which color icing would look best on a snow cake (“Pink is such a good color.” “Fuck you, Sicheng, this isn’t a wedding cake.” “Just propose tonight then, it’s two birds with one stone.” “No!”), they both came out from the bakery, glad to be back under the sun. Sicheng was carrying the cake box as a child would carry a porcelain doll, and Jaehyun felt like he didn’t want to take that off him just yet.

“You wanna hang at my place?” Jaehyun asked. “I’ll probably be busy searching for a place to throw the party tonight. Your input might help. Great emphasize on _might_.”

Sicheng shrugged. “Sure.”

“You don’t have plans with your kinky boyfriend today?”

“Said kinky boyfriend is out of town,” Sicheng said, a little dolefully. Jaehyun turned to get a look at his best friend’s face, and Sicheng was staring back at him with a distracted face.

Then Jaehyun, out of nowhere, asked, “Uh, with Hansol?”

He didn’t know why he’d said that. He hadn’t even thought of Hansol this year, or even heard Sicheng or Yuta mention him lately, but suddenly it was just there in his brain: _Yuta is going out of town with Hansol. For work. Hansol is Yuta’s fucking ex how is Sicheng dealing with this oh my god—_

Sicheng looked surprised. “Well, yeah. How did you know that?”

Jaehyun didn’t know what to answer, so he looked around, searching for something else to distract himself with. “Oh, uh, I don’t—a guess?”

His friend didn’t really look assured, but shrugged it off.

“ _Dude_ ,” Jaehyun said again, when Sicheng didn’t say anything else. “You sure he’s not doing things behind your back? Hansol is his ex, man, how are you okay with that?”

Sicheng just scoffed. “Better stays an ex or else he’s dead.”

 

**_19.7.1 // 12:19 PM_ **

“Are you sure you’re really not gonna propose?” Sicheng asked from the stairs, body leaning over the rail a little bit too dangerously. Jaehyun wondered if he had always been a lowkey adrenaline junkie or he’d recently developed dangerous habits because of Yuta’s whole shenanigans.

(Shenanigans that included going out with an ex he was head over heels for like, two years before he met Sicheng in college, by the way. Yuta was a fucking snake and Jaehyun couldn’t decide whether to shake some common sense into Sicheng’s dumb ass or just went straight to beat some into Yuta instead.)

“Not today,” Jaehyun replied, putting the cake back in the fridge. He hoped Taeyong would go home to his own house today, and not his, or else he’d have to move the cake away. Problem was, he didn’t know where to move it to. He only had one fridge. “I’m a college student. _We_ are college students, Sicheng.”

“So you’re gonna wait until you graduate, then?”

“Probably. I don’t think about it much.”

“Why not?”

Jaehyun turned to look at Sicheng, who had now come down from the rail and seated himself down on the bottom step. He looked at Jaehyun with a curious face, and Jaehyun lost the desire to snap at him.

“Why don’t you?” Jaehyun asked instead.

Sicheng narrowed his eyes. “Yuta should be the one proposing, not me. Like hell I’m gonna get down on my knee and beg him to marry me. That’s _his_ job. I have my pride.”

Jaehyun snorted, but also felt a great surge of affection for Sicheng rushing in. This was why they were friends. This was why they were _still_ friends. This was also probably why Sicheng stuck with Yuta even though the older totally didn’t deserve him.

“And what if he doesn’t,” he said.

“Then we’ll stay boyfriends forever, I guess,” Sicheng said simply.

Jaehyun would so love to talk about this; he would so love to sit Sicheng down and pry it out of him about what was really going on with him and Yuta, but he didn’t. Sicheng never liked like conflicts; he responded well to the conflicts Yuta caused him, but he didn’t like them. And if he didn’t like conflicts, he sure as hell wouldn’t like being confronted.

So Jaehyun uttered a soft “okay” and let it end there.

 

**_19.7.1 // 12:42 PM_ **

Sicheng stayed for lunch because he had no one to cook for him back home. Jaehyun didn’t mind, since he didn’t trust Sicheng’s cooking skills that much and would rather have him around than facing the prospect of Sicheng burning down Yuta’s kitchen in an attempt to survive.

(“But to be fair,” Sicheng said, “He totally deserves having his kitchen burned down.”

“I second that, and I’d pay to see that happen, but I’d rather you not.”)

Jaehyun was standing by the sink when he felt it again – another weird, heavy feeling in his chest, like someone else was there. He stopped washing and glanced back at Sicheng, who was busy playing something on his phone. There were just the two of them, and Jaehyun turned off the faucet to lean against the counter, taking a deep breath.

He didn’t know why, or what was happening, but this was too much weird things in one day. Too much peculiarity to ignore. Something was wrong, but he didn’t know what it was. Also, it was either something was wrong, or something _would_ go wrong. Jaehyun didn’t like either one of those choices.

“Hey, Sicheng,” he called out, but he forgot what he was about to say, because at that time his eyes landed on his phone and the screen lit up with a name he hadn’t seen for such a long time: _2020 Moi._

His mind went blank.

And Jaehyun thought, _oh yeah, that existed,_ and then he fucking lunged for the phone.

He didn’t have to be that hasty, really, and he only noticed this after he almost broke his nose nearly missing the edge of the dining table by an inch. Sicheng looked up and said something in Chinese – probably a swearword – and Jaehyun slid to the floor with his phone in his hand, staring at the name frantically, almost violently, even, his heart thrashing around so hard that he thought Sicheng would be able to hear it from his place at the other side of the table.

_Why now? Why now? Why now? After all these time, why now?_

“Jaehyun!” Sicheng called out, standing up and looked over the table. “You okay?”

“No,” Jaehyun answered. “I, uh, it’s an important phone call, I have to go—“

And with that, he shuffled up and stumbled away from the kitchen, Sicheng’s worried exclaims trailing after him helplessly.

(And even if he was beyond angry that it had been months – a year even – since the last phone call happened, he would be lying if he wasn’t so thrilled about hearing his own voice again.)

 

**_20.10.8 // 23:55 PM_ **

Jaehyun falls asleep reading a lot more often nowadays.

When he wakes up, Taeyong’s book is crushed underneath his body, the paper he wrote on earlier wedged somewhere between the pages. The pen must’ve rolled away somewhere but he didn’t care. Jaehyun wakes up wide-eyed, as if someone has just dumped a whole bucket of cold water onto him. He wakes up alert and tense for a reason he doesn’t know yet, and something unknown yet electrifying is rushing in his veins, lighting up speckles of prickly sensations all over his skin.

Weird.

He scrambles off his bed to check the clock, and heaves a relieved sigh when he sees that there’s still five minutes or so left until midnight.

He leans back to the headboard and reaches for his phone, folds his legs and puts it on top of his knees, and waits. He gets impatient after awhile and takes his phone in his hand again, and then put it down, only to pick it up again later.

When the hour hits, Jaehyun holds his breath. _Taeyong_ , he thinks. _I’m gonna talk about Taeyong, nothing else._

But the call doesn’t happen.

Nobody’s calling him.

 

**_20.10.9 // 00:01 AM_ **

A minute passes him by and Jaehyun’s spirit falls. He unlocks his phone to check if he has no signal (does that even _matter_ , what the fuck) but when he’s about to open the call log, his phone vibrates and opens up 2018 Jaehyun’s contact. All by itself. Jaehyun definitely isn’t touching anything yet, and his phone is acting up on its own.

 _Okay_ , he thinks again. _This isn’t creepy at all._

He has a lot of questions, frankly speaking, but he figures since there’s no one there to answer it for him, it’s useless to question things anyway. So Jaehyun does what he has to do: he presses the call button, a bit hesitantly, and it _works_ , and he’s calling his other self for the first time after always receiving the call all these times. He doesn’t know what to feel about it, truly.

The call extends for longer than a few seconds, and Jaehyun almost loses hope, but then a familiar voice greets him – rather than a voice, it’s a shout, really. _His_ shout.

“Where the hell has you been, piece of—“

Jaehyun jerks the phone away from him, frowning. Jesus, he’s really loud. When the shouting has subsided, Jaehyun brings the phone closer to him again.

“Hey,” he says dryly. “Nice joke, by the way. We talked yesterday. Is this your idea of a prank? Is this how you have fun?”

There’s a pause, in which Jaehyun can hear his other self gasping softly, as if offended.

“Yesterday?” he repeats, and Jaehyun has to give some more distance between him and his phone once more. “ _Yesterday_ , you said? Dude, last time we talked was last fucking year!”

Jaehyun snorts. “Funny enough. Now can we get serious? I have to tell you about something, it’s really important—“

“Hey,” the other Jaehyun says, voice calmer this time. “I’m serious.”

“What?”

“I’m serious. It’s been a year, Jaehyun.”

“ _What?_ ” Jaehyun echoes, and he stares at his own hands, at the dull, trembling fingers, as his mind tried its best to work, to connect things scattered by the wind of time and comprehension. “What even—what does that even mean?”

“Exactly why it means,” his other self says tiredly, and Jaehyun imagines himself sitting down out of exhaustion, or maybe even sliding down the wall. “I thought… I thought this thing was done for sure. I thought it happened, and then ended, just like that. It’s been a year since I last called you.”

Jaehyun is thunderstruck. He’s so thunderstruck that he doesn’t even realize that he’s now standing up, staring straight at the wall for no apparent reason. His whole body feels numb, and he has nothing to hold on to. A wonder he hasn’t tripped over the sheets yet.

“It’s been a year?” he repeats, and he automatically looks at the paper he’s written on earlier, still lodged in Taeyong’s book. “So… it’s 2019?”

“Yeah. What year is it over there?”

Jaehyun swallows. “It’s… it’s still 2020. And last time we talked was… yesterday. For me. Why has it been a year for you?”

“Whoa, seriously?” the other Jaehyun says. He sounds just as bewildered as current Jaehyun is, reasonably. “This shit is weird, man, I wouldn’t question things if I were you. For now, I’m just glad we’re back here. Freaky as this is, it’s a reassurance having you around.”

Jaehyun comes back from reality enough to scoff at that. “Really now,” he says sarcastically. “What are you up to?”

“Now? Cooking lunch for Sicheng,” the other Jaehyun simply replies. “Yuta’s out with Hansol—I know _right_ , what an asshole—but you probably went over this already once. Oh, and also, it’s Taeyong’s birthday. And uh, I’m dating him now, sort of.”

There’s so many things happening at the same time that Jaehyun should’ve been disoriented. There’s just so many things happening that Jaehyun should’ve lost his balance and actually trip, but he doesn’t, because the moment he heard Taeyong’s name, and that it was his birthday, and that 2018 Jaehyun (well, now 2019) was already dating Taeyong, he knows what day it was on the other timeline, what would happen and what wouldn’t. He knows it all to well, and all confusions and queries and astonishments be damned, because he has to make this through – it’s his last _another chance_. It’s the last another chance he’ll ever get, and he knows this.

“Listen,” he says, and he tries to pour in his whole seriousness in it, because if he can’t make him believe in himself, it’s all over. “Listen, Jaehyun, I need you to really listen. As soon as this call ends, find Taeyong. Please.”

“What? Why?”

“Don’t ask questions, just do it. Please, or else you’ll regret it.”

Jaehyun certainly doesn’t expect this to be easy, but he hopes at least the other Jaehyun won’t make it _too_ hard for him. Both of his time and patience are limited.

“What do you mean?” he asks again. “Taeyong’s working right now, I can’t disturb him. Also, I can’t leave Sicheng unattended—“

It’s as if someone has snipped the thinning line that is Jaehyun’s patience.

“Well, you better!” he snaps, nearly hitting the wall with his knuckles as he goes off. “Do you _want_ him dead? You don’t, don’t you? I know you don’t, so you better haul ass and find him right now, Jaehyun Jung!”

Jaehyun doesn’t have time to think if it was wrong of him to say that, if it could be disastrous if he said things a bit too overtly like that. He just wants his other self to get up, get out, find Taeyong, hurl him to the nearest saferoom, and stays there until the day ends, because he’s sure fate is still a sick motherfucker who wants to tear Jaehyun apart by tearing Taeyong away for no real reason. Fate is eerie and cruel just like that, and Jaehyun hates it to the bones of its imbalanced, haphazard cognizance, wants to tear the flesh of its deceitful hope-giving and dream-inducing tendencies to pieces. If today Jaehyun can’t beat fate, then he might as well die trying.

(No, seriously. He’s ready to die today.)

And then, he can feel it, hope rising in his chest – hope given by _himself_ , not by fate – when he hears his past self says, in a much more firmer voice, “You serious right now?”

He nods, and then feels stupid because the other Jaehyun won’t be able to see him. “Dead serious. Find him, Jaehyun. Keep him with you. Bring him back to me. Please. Please.”

A pause. A thick, unsettling pause, like a fog draped a dead city, sending icy breezes that travel down rigid spines.

“So the lover you lost,” the other Jaehyun finally utters again, after keeping quiet for awhile, no doubt trying to understand the whole situation. “The one you’re grieving over all this time. It was Taeyong. It _is_ Taeyong. He’s gone. He’s already gone in your year.”

“Yeah,” he says, and his name is stuck in his throat, but he tries to choke it out. “I lost Taeyong. There was a car accident and it was so bad and it was his birthday too and I need you to believe me now because—“

“Say no more,” the other Jaehyun interrupts him, and Jaehyun could cry at the way he’s said it, the faith and concern stained so clearly in his voice. “I’ll find him.”

Jaehyun doesn’t like showing weakness to others, but he’s been keeping things to himself for far too long and he’s so close to breaking and sinking, and the only thing keeping him afloat is his own trust. His own trust in himself. He trusts himself, that’s literally it, and he finds himself pleading, in a very thin, fragile voice that he wouldn’t use in front of anyone else but _himself_ , “Save me.”

He still goes under, but it’s warm and he can actually breathe in the obscure water when his voice says back to him, “I’ll save you.”

 

**_19.7.1 // 12:49 PM_ **

“I have to go,” Jaehyun declared, as soon as he went back in from the porch, grabbing a jacket from its hanging place behind the door as he did so. “Sicheng, you’re not that hungry yet, right? Can you wait until I get back?”

Sicheng stood up when he saw Jaehyun stumbling around with one shoe, trying to fight his foot in to the other one. “I’ll go with you,” he offered, but Jaehyun frowned at him and shook his head. Sicheng’s voice faltered. “Why?”

“It’s nothing serious,” was the only excuse Jaehyun could think of, even if it was such a big fat lie because it _was_ something serious. Too serious for Jaehyun’s taste. “Stay home.”

Sicheng scowled. “Don’t be like Yuta,” he suddenly said, and Jaehyun lifted his face when he heard the way Sicheng said it. It wasn’t a common tone he’d use – it was dejected and angry and hysterical at the same time, and Jaehyun could feel his head starting to spin even harder. “I’m not a child. Don’t tell me to stay home, or to calm down, or to—“

“ _Fine_ ,” Jaehyun interrupted him, not wanting to see another unexpected breakdown since he was distraught enough as he was. He really could use some Advils right now, and also, can his friends stop opening up about their problems in the worst of times? “Fine, you can come with me. Also, does Yuta tell you those things? Because I’ll fight him, I really will.”

Sicheng’s smile was small, but a smile nevertheless.

“Not necessarily,” he replied vaguely, and Jaehyun wanted him to elaborate more on that answer, but remembered that he didn’t have the time. So he let Sicheng trail after him out of the house.

 

**_19.7.1 // 12:53 PM_ **

While Sicheng walked down the street to get them a taxi, Taeyong called him. Jaehyun, who had been fidgeting ever since they left the house, nearly dropped his phone (again) when Taeyong’s name popped up on the screen. The guy never really called around this hour. Relieved that Taeyong was still alive, at least, he answered it tensely.

“Hey,” Jaehyun said immediately, maybe a little to hastily. He hoped Taeyong wouldn’t notice. It would be hard to explain his nerviness. “What’s wrong?”

“Why, can’t I call my boyfriend on my lunch break?” Taeyong teased. “Miss you already, dimples.”

On normal occasion, Jaehyun would’ve responded back with an equally tacky pet name, or maybe coo at Taeyong in an equally innocent tone. But this wasn’t a normal occasion. If Future Jaehyun was saying the truth – he had no reason to lie in the first place – Taeyong was intended to die today. By some cruel fate or chance or whatever the hell was it that dealt with life and death, Taeyong was intended to die today, and Jaehyun was intended to suffer a pain so great it traversed timelines.

 _Maybe that’s why it started in the first place_ , Jaehyun thought. _For this day. For me to do this._

And Jaehyun wouldn’t be Jaehyun if he backed down from a promise. He’d disappointed himself so many times before, but not this time. He wouldn’t fail this time.

He was so lost in his short reverie that he forgot Taeyong was calling him.

“Hey,” Taeyong said again, and Jaehyun startled. “Why are you so quiet? Did I say something wrong? Was that too cringey?”

Jaehyun stuttered on his own words, something he hadn’t done since Taeyong first called him cute a year ago in college. “Uh, I don’t—I’m not really—no, I’m fine.”

“You sure?” Taeyong asked, and Jaehyun could imagine his face contorting in concern. “You sound really upset. Something’s wrong.”

Jaehyun couldn’t deal with this, so he chose to deflect. “Where are you now?”

“Me? I’m still at the hospital,” Taeyong answered. “I’m gonna go down to get Taeil, and then we’re going to eat out. Why do you ask?”

“Don’t,” Jaehyun said, and he was breathless when he said it, all of the sudden. “Don’t go anywhere. Stay in the hospital.” _Or you’ll die_ , he wanted to add, but of course he couldn’t. Of course.

Taeyong let out a short laugh. “You want me to eat my scalpel for lunch? I’m dying right now, Jaehyun, you know I didn’t eat anything this morning. I have surgery in two hours, what if I pass out then?”

Jaehyun wished Taeyong hadn’t used the word _dying_ , because it made the churn in his stomach worsen. He could’ve puked if Sicheng didn’t come back at that time, waving his hand and yelling, “I got us a taxi, come here!”

“Is that Sicheng’s voice?” Taeyong inquired, when Jaehyun still didn’t answer. “You’re cheating on me on my birthday, honey pig? That’s harsh.”

“Not funny,” Jaehyun mumbled. “But I’m serious. Can you at least… stay wherever you are until I get there? Please.”

Taeyong sighed. “Something’s definitely wrong. You’re acting weird. Spill the bean, you’re worrying me.”

“I swear _nothing_ is wrong!” Jaehyun said, a little to firmly. He got into the taxi and gestured for Sicheng to get in quickly, the younger nearly tripped on his laces as he did. “But for my sake, please. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be there in five minutes, I swear.”

“You know that’s impossible,” was Sicheng’s honestly unneeded input. “It’ll take ten, at least. But it’s better than taking the train.”

“Fine, I’ll be there in ten,” Jaehyun said through gritted teeth. “Can’t you at least wait ten minutes, hyung? Please.”

“ _Hyung?_ ” Taeyong repeated, and for a second there Jaehyun thought he could hear the amusement in Taeyong’s voice. “It’s been years and you only called me hyung now?”

“Please?” Jaehyun had been saying please so many times now he’d lost count.

“Just come here, Jaehyun,” Taeyong said in the end. “I, uh, also have something to tell you. About high school. I actually called you to talk about that, but since you’re coming here anyway, I guess we’ll just talk later.”

“Okay,” Jaehyun said, and he let himself take a deep breath, relieving some of his anxiety. “Just promise me you’ll stay at the hospital until I arrive, okay?”

“Sure.”

 

**_19.7.1 // 13:08 PM_ **

Sicheng wasn’t lying: it did take at least ten minutes to get to the hospital. _At least,_ because neither of them remembered that it was rush hour, and rush hour meant traffic jams, and traffic jams meant Jaehyun’s shaking knees wouldn’t stop shaking anytime soon. It must’ve been fifteen minutes, at best, but it felt like an hour. Or two. Or three. Jaehyun was so nervous it made him lose his sense of time-telling. Taeyong did promise him to stay wherever he was and waited for him, but Taeyong was, well, Taeyong, and he probably underestimated Jaehyun’s concern, and if your future self told you “hey dude, our boyfriend’s gonna die today, can you save him so neither of us won’t drown in devastation and regret later” who wouldn’t panic, honestly.

“Sicheng, I’m gonna run,” he finally declared, when the taxi slowed down to a stop on yet another traffic light. “I’m gonna run. You stay here—” Jaehyun stopped himself mid-sentence, reminding himself that Sicheng nearly lost his shit when he told him things earlier, so he corrected himself. “I’ll see you in the hospital later.”

“What?” Sicheng demanded, and when Jaehyun didn’t answer and instead went for the door, he grabbed his wrist in a vice grip. “Dude! What the fuck?”

“I’m saving someone’s life here!” Jaehyun yelled, and tugged his hand away from Sicheng. “I’m saving my boyfriend’s life, if anything!”

Sicheng stared at Jaehyun in shock. “What are you on?” he asked finally, after a few seconds of heated stare-off.

“Myself,” Jaehyun said, and he went out of the car, Sicheng’s stifled responses trailing after him, a few Chinese swearwords mixed in helplessly.

 

**_19.7.1 // 13:14 PM_ **

Jaehyun ran like his life depended on it.

(And since his life _was_ Taeyong, his life indeed depended on it.)

He made his way through throngs of people on their lunch breaks, shoving past a few of them on the sidewalk and barely remembered to look around before crossing the street. It was reasonably hard to run when he was like that: exceptionally restless, mind muddled with thousands of unwanted images of Taeyong and blood and smoke, and with a heart that didn’t seem like it would want to slow down anytime soon.

He could already see the tip of the hospital building just around the corner, and even if he wanted, he didn’t stop to catch his breath. He could do that later, when Taeyong was already in front of him, away from the street, far from the cars rushing past in high speed. He could take a rest when Taeyong was absolutely safe and Jaehyun could attest that safety.

In his hurry, Jaehyun slipped on the marble tiles and rammed his face on the edge of the glass door. He cursed, tasting blood in his mouth, and a few people stopped in their tracks, some coming closer to ask him a lot of _are you okay_ s but Jaehyun just stood up (without even wiping the blood off his face) and looked around for Taeyong. He knew he must’ve looked really crazy (and frankly dangerous) then, but _who the fuck cares, seriously_.

The first thing he thought when he didn’t see him was, _shit, where did he go?_

And then he spotted Taeil and Taeyong coming out of the elevator, and his heart stopped thrashing around like a fish out of water. He mumbled a couple of apologies to the people surrounding him, and moved past them to get to Taeyong.

The moment Taeyong saw him, he broke off into a wide grin. But then he noticed the blood on Jaehyun’s face and that grin faltered. He opened his mouth to say something, but Jaehyun didn’t listen. He didn’t even stop to think or explain himself; instead he flung himself at Taeyong, crushing him in a desperately powerful bear hug, and buried his face in his shoulders, even if that meant smearing blood all over his white coat.

“Jaehyun!” Taeyong exclaimed, his hands light but sure on Jaehyun’s back. “You’re bleeding. What the hell happened to you? What’s wrong?”

“Don’t go anywhere,” Jaehyun choked out. “Just don’t. Let me buy your lunch for you. You stay here.”

Taeyong stayed silent. Jaehyun knew he was exchanging worried glances with Taeil behind his back, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t letting go soon.

“Jaehyun,” Taeyong finally spoke again, tapping Jaehyun’s back. “Jaehyun, I don’t know why you’re acting like this, but for now, all three of us should go eat and talk, okay?”

Jaehyun sniffed. He didn’t cry, but he felt like he was close to.

Then a drop of saltiness dripped down to his split lip. Okay. Scratch that, maybe he _was_ crying.

“Are you _crying?_ ” Taeyong demanded, making it worse.

“No!” Jaehyun replied, blinking the tears away and he pulled back from Taeyong, before wiping his mouth and the dry blood pasted on his lips. “I’m fine. Just… just don’t go anywhere without me, okay? Promise me that.”

Taeyong looked like he’d do anything just to have Jaehyun talk to him about what was actually happening. “I promise,” he stated, later on. He placed his hand on Jaehyun’s cheek and wiped a splotch of soot on his chin. “I promise I’m not going anywhere without you, you weirdo. Let’s all go eat together now.”

Jaehyun could only nod, because if he talked, he felt like he’d cry again. Taeyong looked up to him, and now there wasn’t just love in his eyes, but also worry, and wonders, and questions, and more love.

“Oh,” Jaehyun suddenly said, remembering something. “Sicheng’s coming, too. I left him in the taxi earlier, but I said I’d see him here.”

Taeyong pursed his lips. “What do you mean you _left_ him in the taxi? Did you jump out in the middle of the street or something?”

Jaehyun purposefully avoided Taeyong’s eyes, and the older hit him on the chest.

“You could’ve hurt yourself!” Taeyong exclaimed. “I can’t believe you did that—also poor Sicheng, what if he gets lost now?”

“That’s impossible, he’s in a taxi,” Jaehyun responded weakly. “The taxi is going here, to the hospital, he’s not gonna get lost. Unless the driver is a kidnapper. Then it’s all over.”

Taeyong’s eyes widened in more shock. “Do you think this is some kind of joke?”

Taeil, who kept quiet all this time while Taeyong was busy reprimanding Jaehyun, stepped in between them. “Gentlemen,” he said nattily, “We should just go out and eat now. We can just eat in that vegan restaurant next door, if you don’t want to go too far from the hospital.”

“I don’t like that place,” Taeyong stated, still frowning. “But fine.”

“Sorry,” Jaehyun sheepishly said. “We can go somewhere else. I can just text Sicheng, you know. Tell him to wait.”

“It’s okay, Jaehyun,” Taeil said, before Taeyong could respond. “We can wait for him there. The taxi will undoubtedly pass by the place, so we’ll be able to get Sicheng.”

Since he had no other alternatives, he nodded to Taeil’s suggestion. Taeyong scoffed, took off his coat, and went away with a grumble. Taeil just watched on with a soft smile on his face, before shaking his head.

“He’s not seriously mad,” he said. “He’s just worried. He’s worried about you a lot. You should hear him when he told me you were acting weird. He made it sound like you were dying or something.”

“Really?” Jaehyun raised an eyebrow. “That’s… cute.”

“Yeah.”

Jaehyun looked up at the receptionist desk, and thought, _I did it, for now_. And also: _I should work here._ That way he’d be able to spend every lunch break with Taeyong, keep an eye on him at all times, and things would never turn out the way it did in Future Jaehyun’s timeline.

He waited for the relief to come, wash him off his worries, but it didn’t.

 

**_19.7.1 // 13:21 PM_ **

Apparently life favored Sicheng enough that day, because he walked right in before the three of them went out.

“Jaehyun!” he yelled, when he saw Jaehyun standing near the potted plant with his hands in his pockets, waiting for Taeyong to clean his coat of Jaehyun’s blood. “You’ve lost your damn mind, have you? You owe me money for the cab, by the way, you ass.”

Jaehyun was so happy he could kiss Sicheng right there, but he didn’t. Instead he let Sicheng shove him in annoyance, curse at him a few more times, before promising him that he’d treat him to food. Sicheng was still grumbling, but he was less iritated, and by the time Taeyong was done (“I _could_ get in trouble for that.” “But you get blood on you all the time, what’s the deal?” “The coat ain’t mine, dimples.”) they were all ready to grab food.

“Since Sicheng is here, this means we don’t have to go to that vegan restaurant, right?” Taeyong said, when all four of them walked out of the glass door. “I mean, I don’t hate the salad there as much as I hate Doyoungie, but—“

“I’ll tell him you said that,” Taeil said lightly. “But yeah, we can go anywhere you want now. It’s your birthday, Surgeon Lee.”

“And _you_ ,” Taeyong continued, poking a finger on Jaehyun’s chest. “You owe us—all three of us—an explanation.”

Jaehyun’s smile wavered when the other two pair of eyes look at him, too. “Uh…”

Well, _there_ was another problem. Jaehyun certainly didn’t know how to explain things. He didn’t know how to explain himself acting up without mentioning Taeyong’s supposed death and a future counterpart. He definitely didn’t. Well, he could, but he wouldn’t.

Also, there was still this niggling feeling in his stomach, like a persistent queasiness that made every one of his steps heavy – almost like a bad premonition. Jaehyun saved Taeyong, for now, yes, but it all felt too _easy_ , too simple. Jaehyun had never seen any protagonist in any movie ever saving their lover this smoothly. More often than not, another problem would arise, another obstacle, and he’d be forced to suffer first. If there was one thing Jaehyun was sure about life, or fate, or the law of the universe, it was that it wasn’t this lenient.

Jaehyun tried not to dwell on that. He didn’t want to.

“I kinda want to eat rice,” Taeyong later announced, but Jaehyun was barely listening to him. He was walking on the outer side of the sidewalk, Sicheng next to him.

“Eat rice, then,” Taeil replied. “Should we go to that place you like so much—what’s the name? The one which serves really good bulgogi.”

“Deal,” Taeyong agreed immediately, pointing finger guns at Taeil. “Let’s go.”

Jaehyun opened his mouth to say something, probably to argue that Taeyong didn’t even like bulgogi, either, but then he looked up, and the queasiness in his stomach was amplified by a tenfold when he saw that a car was closing in on them fast, the sound of tires skidding against the road was earsplitting, metal body spinning uncontrollably, there was a lot of screaming and cautioning cries—

It happened so fast. Too fast.

It was so foolish of him, but the only thought he had was Taeyong, and he pushed the older out of the way, even if it meant he was rushing straight to the face of total agony and tears.

 

**_19.7.1 // 13:25 PM_ **

The worst injury Jaehyun had ever gotten was back in fifth grade, when he fell face-first onto the floor of the basketball court, hand folded underneath his body with a loud, horrifying crack. He wore cast for almost a month. He fractured _both_ ankles in eighth and ninth grade, too, but definitely, unquestionably _none_ of these injuries could compare to the fucking torture he was going through right now.

The first was on his leg – left or right, he couldn’t tell anymore. Not that it mattered. It was a searing hot pain, so hot and painful that he felt detached from the world, like someone cut off his soul and separated it from his body, but not his senses, just to make him suffer. And he _did_ suffer; he didn’t know if he screamed or not, probably in too much to even whimper, but he couldn’t feel anything but pain, pain, and more pain. He sensed something harsh and hard on his back, so the impact probably sent him away against the nearest wall, and he was now sliding down to the ground.

The next was his upper body, which started throbbing so excruciatingly like Jaehyun had suddenly grown another heart from his stomach or something. If his hands weren’t so numb he would’ve tried to touch it, but even if he didn’t, he could kind of guess that there was so much liquid – blood, maybe – flowing out from there, somewhere on his skin, he must’ve cut himself, also probably.

Also, his head had felt like it was about to burst, so there was that, too. Another one to add on his already-peaking list of suffering.

He didn’t know why he didn’t just lose consciousness – at least he’d be able to forgo the pain for awhile if it was like that. There were more shoutings now, and it smelled like smoke and blood and gasoline, and Jaehyun pondered why were his senses still so _accurate_ when he was half-dead on the street like this. He’d never actually been hit by a car before, nor did he have friends who had, but he was sure when your body was scattered beyond all imaginations, your senses shouldn’t have worked this well.

And then there was Taeyong.

Of course there was Taeyong.

Above all things, above all the hurt and the swirling thoughts of _I’m dying oh my god_ and the sweltering heat around him, there was Taeyong’s voice. There was Taeyong’s voice, crawling closer and closer, from a faraway place, from a fading distance, to somewhere else next to him.

There were Taeyong’s voice _and_ his name.

That was all Jaehyun could make out, because his mind was swimming back and forth between consciousness, the pain was growing much more intensely, and he couldn’t breathe. Then there was something hotter on his cheeks, hotter than the current heat and the numbing ache, hotter than his roiling insides, something that was suspiciously shaped like a hand. Two hands. On his face.

 _Taeyong_ ’s hands.

“Can you hear me?” Taeyong yelled, presumably at his face, and Jaehyun so wanted to open his eyes and told him a weak “yeah”, but he couldn’t. “Oh, oh, Jaehyun, there’s so much blood, I need something to stop it—Taeil! Taeil!“ Taeyong’s panicked voice receded, and Jaehyun felt like he was smiling, but he couldn’t be. He was dying. He couldn’t be smiling.

(Taeyong told him later that he was, indeed, smiling, and it was the creepiest thing the older had ever seen in his whole two years of messing with people’s innards.)

At the back of his dazed mind, Jaehyun applauded his unnervingly good luck. He got hit by a car, probably broke his leg (if not worse), probably was on the process of bleeding to death, but Taeyong was there with him, alive, and he was a doctor, he knew what to do, and he could save Jaehyun’s life, and the hospital was only a few minutes away.

The relief he was waiting for finally came now, gracing him with its cooling touch, its soothing hands, smooth fingers carressing Jaehyun’s burning eyelids, and he puffed out a choked laugh. This was the next obstacle. This was what he really needed to do. He did it for real now. He saved himself – in both times.

Taeyong’s hands never left his face even once all this while, and Jaehyun thought, _can I black out now? It’s getting unbearable._ Strange enough, his body complied to his wish, and he sunk into nothingness.

 

**_20.10.9 // 00:32 AM_ **

Jaehyun has been waiting impatiently in his room the whole time. He goes from his chair to his bed, then to his chair again, and then to the bathroom to wash his face, and then back again. He sure as hell can’t sleep – not when he’s literally trying to save Taeyong. He tries his best to keep the what ifs away in a secluded spot on the back of his brain, because honestly it’ll just drag him down further if he starts thinking now. He doesn’t need more rocks in his clothes to drown him, thank you very much, he sinks just fine.

It’s half an hour after that, he thinks, when things get interesting.

And by interesting, he really means appallingly painful.

Jaehyun ends up laying back down on his bed and reading Taeyong’s book while he waits. Waits for what, he also doesn’t know. The call? Probably will happen next midnight, if it still happens at all. Jaehyun is pretty sure the only reason it happened in the first place is just so it could lead them both to this day. Maybe this is some kind of a fucked up apology from the world for taking Taeyong away. Or maybe the grim reaper is just playing games with him, he doesn’t know.

He’s flipping through the pages absentmindedly when his head starts to get dizzy, and it’s not the normal kind of dizzy that he gets whenever he’s arguing with Mark over TV channels or some other stupid stuff. It’s the kind of the dizzy that is maddening and blinding, and it all happens so abruptly and quickly, too, that the next thing he knows, he’s already on the floor with no memory of how he got there.

(He probably just rolled off his bed, but still.)

The dizziness is just the prelude, apparently, because from there on it kind of snowballs to ruin. Jaehyun feels an unfamiliar pain all over his body, like he’s being crushed in between boulders, or really gravelly walls, or both at the same time. It’s not a nice feeling. Jaehyun groans and rolls around, trying to move the pain away to no avail. Then his leg starts to hurt, and then his chest, and then his stomach, and then even though he knows for a fact he doesn’t have any kind of life-threatening diseases whatsoever, he coughs up blood.

At that point, Jaehyun wonders if he should start freaking out.

 

**_19.7.1 // 13:44 PM_ **

The first thing he saw was blinding white lights, blurring out his vision, disorienting his still-weak concentration. For a moment there Jaehyun forgot where he was, or what had happened to him. He forgot everything.

Then he saw Taeyong, standing over him, wiping his face with something that stung, and it all came back to him like a movie reel. His first thought after that was: _Wow,_ _I’ve never seen a doctor cry at work before._

He voiced out his opinion, but Taeyong didn’t answer. He didn’t even bother wiping the tracks of tears on his face; he just dabbed on Jaehyun’s face a little harder, bottom lip caught between teeth. Jaehyun had a feeling he’d looked like that for awhile now, and even though it made him feel guilty, he was also quite entertained.

Taeyong still didn’t make any sound.

“Are you mad?” Jaehyun asked, in a dry, broken voice that must’ve been caused by the ungodly amounts of injuries he had to be sustaining. “Because I saved your life?”

(Jaehyun should probably think before he talked, because it sounded like he was asking for a fight if it was like this.)

“In exchange of almost losing your own?” Taeyong shot back. His voice was unexpectedly quiet, but Jaehyun knew it was the calm before storm. Shit just hadn’t hit the fan yet. “I’m not mad, dimples. I’m just reasonably, tremendously livid.”

“Taeyong,” Jaehyun said, when Taeyong finally stopped disinfecting his face and pulled the nearest chair to sit down next to him. “Taeyong,” he said again, when Taeyong still refused to speak. “I didn’t just save your life.”

“Yeah?” Taeyong asked, leaning back on his chair and took off his gloves. “Whose life else that you saved, huh?”

“My own,” Jaehyun responded simply, and he smiled, just because he felt like it.

Taeyong just stared at him in silence, with heavy-lidded, tired eyes. Jaehyun wondered just how did he manage to stop Jaehyun’s bleeding all while crying his eyes out like that. He turned to search in those dark gems of his, to see if he could still see Taeyong’s oceanlike love flowing from them, but his vision was still so unfocused that he couldn’t really do much. So he ended up staring at Taeyong back.

“Is this one of your stupid pick-up lines again?” Taeyong asked, moments later, when he was getting tired of the staring competition. “You’re saying that I’m your life or something?”

“No and yes. No because this isn’t a pick-up line, yes because you _are_ my life.”

Taeyong scrunched his nose, and he made sure Jaehyun catch that. “If you died,” he began, and it was on this point onward that Jaehyun knew he was gonna burst, “I’d kill you.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Jaehyun commented, and he winced, because he felt the soreness in his leg when he tried to move. Taeyong was immediately standing again, looking at him with worry. It was as if every one of Jaehyun’s wince would pull him right up, even if he was sleeping. “Ah, shit, this hurts. How bad is it?”

“Crushed tibia,” Taeyong told him. “Compromised patella.”

“Please speak Korean, Doctor.”

Taeyong pursed his lips. “Your leg is fucked,” he said, and Jaehyun grimaced again, but he guessed that, anyway. He wanted to say “I’ve had worse” to soothe Taeyong, but he hadn’t, so. “Also you cut your abdomen pretty deep. You almost bled to death.”

“Did I, really?” Jaehyun murmured. Okay, maybe he did have a good luck, but that didn’t mean his life was guaranteed. Taeyong ignored him, anyway.

“I had to stitch it up quickly,” Taeyong continued on, his voice much softer now. “So it wasn’t… it isn’t the best. It’s messy, more like. I should’ve let one of the nurses do it, but I… couldn’t.”

“You sewed me up _while_ crying?” Jaehyun asked, almost in disbelief. “That’s magic.”

“The only thing magical here is how you almost died and yet you’re still an insufferable, mouthy dumbass when you wake up,” Taeyong countered, and he looked like he’d smack Jaehyun across the face if he wasn’t so beaten up already. “I’m a doctor. I have to remain calm in any situation. I mean I’ve never patched up my half-dead stupid boyfriend before, so I don’t really know, but I think I did well.”

“Yeah, well, I’m alive, so you did well,” Jaehyun concluded. He tried to move his hand, which felt really heavy, but he managed anyway. Taeyong immediately grabbed him by the wrist.

“What are you trying to pull now?” he inquired in a warning tone.

“Your hand,” Jaehyun replied. “I’m trying to pull your hand. In mine.”

Taeyong snorted, but he let Jaehyun interlace their fingers together. Most of the tears had faded from his face by now, and his hand felt really warm and comfortable and fit perfectly against Jaehyun’s.

“I’m not gonna let you off easy for this,” he reminded Jaehyun, when they just stayed like that for minutes, connected by the hands (probably just because Taeyong was still too afraid to kiss his bruised mouth). “It’ll take so much for me to forgive you.”

“Better you mad than you dead,” Jaehyun said, and Taeyong squeezed his hand a little too strongly.

“You also owe me an explanation,” he later said again. “And Taeil and Sicheng, too. You owed them explanation, apology, and in Sicheng’s case, a good lunch.”

Jaehyun groaned. “Oh, yeah.”

“You know what I said before? About if you had died, I’d kill you?” Taeyong asked, and Jaehyun reluctantly nodded. “I stand to correct: I’ll still do that. Once you recover, I’m gonna ruin you, Jaehyun Jung. I’m gonna make you suffer for making _me_ suffer.”

Jaehyun burst out laughing. “Oh dear,” he muttered. “I can’t wait.”

At least even if Taeyong planned to make him suffer later, it would just mean that he was alive, and that he was breathing, and that he was safe.

(Also, Taeyong had _already_ ruined him so much by now, what was he even talking about?)

 

**_20.10.9 // 06:39 AM_ **

The pain must’ve knocked him out, because the next time he opens his eyes, it’s already bright outside.

Jaehyun is still on the floor, laying on his back, staring at the ceilings. His eyes are wide, unfocused, and he tries to move, to see if any part of his limbs is hurting. Not necessarily, but his body still feels heavy. _And_ sore. He’s been sleeping on the floor, so that’s’a given, he guesses.

He props himself up on one elbow and looks around. Nothing in his room has seemed to change. Everything is just as he left it last night: the blankets are still drooped over the headboard, there were papers under his bed, and his bedroom door was wide open because he hadn’t bothered to close it last night. He gets up, balances himself on wobbly legs, and walks to the bathroom.

When Jaehyun bends down over the sink to brush his teeth, he feels something prickly on his chest. It’s not prickly enough to be painful, but definitely uncomfortable. So Jaehyun puts down his toothbrush and lifts up his shirt, wondering if some kind of weird bug has snuck into his clothes and bit him while he was out cold last night, but instead he finds a long sewn scar over his abdomen.

To say he’s shocked is an understatement.

A very great understatement.

(He might or might have not spend a full minute screaming. _Might_.)

He would’ve been less shaken if it was a scratch, at least, but that scar is _huge_. It’s crossing over from a point on his hipbone to the center of his chest, like someone drew a line over his skin shakily with a Sharpie, but change the Sharpie to a scalpel knife maybe. It’s dark brown in color, so it’s not _new_ new, but definitely not an old scar. When Jaehyun went to work yesterday, the scar definitely wasn’t there. Actually, in all his life, in all the times he’s taken a shower and seen himself naked, Jaehyun has never seen that scar. It was never there.

He reluctantly traced at the scar, and wondered if he’d hit himself against the edge of the bed last night. Even if he did – he wasn’t sure in the first place, so he probably didn’t – that still didn’t explain the stitch marks. It didn’t hurt when he pressed on it, but it was prickly against his skin.

So he did the next reasonable thing: he took a selfie and sent it to Johnny.

 

_**YoooNOhs:** Camera_177278.jpg_

_**YoooNOhs:** can you tell me how tf did I get this?_

Johnnny answered not even a minute later.

 

_**Yonghoe:** oh ew, it’s like 4 in the morning wtf_

_**YoooNOhs:** bitch… it’s 6_

_**Yonghoe:** i was exaggerating, jung._

_**Yonghoe:** anyway that is disgusting, i know you’re like, super proud of your freaky rescue mission last year but I Did Not Need to See That_

_**YoooNOhs:** what rescue mission?_

_**YoooNOhs:** also answer my question_

_**Yonghoe:** didn’t u get that from that suicidal car crash thing on ty’s birthday in ‘19_

 

Jaehyun puts down his phone and rubs his eyes. He really needs to think, because whatever Johnny is talking about, he knows none of it. For all he knows, he’s apparently gone all JRPG on Taeyong’s birthday last year.

And usually when Jaehyun thinks, he remembers, too.

There’s really nothing specific coming up in his mind when he tries to think about what _might_ be happening, but he feels like he’s missing out on something. Like he’s a puzzle set, and there is one piece that is stuck somewhere else he isn’t aware of. It’s not a hurtful feeling per se, but it messes him up a bit. He stands up from the edge of the bathtub he’s been sitting on and paces around, phone forgotten near the soap place.

Then as if he’s struck by a lightning bolt, he stops in his track and looks at his phone.

_Car crash. Taeyong’s birthday. 2019._

Why is he so stupid?

He grabs his phone with so much speed that he almost crashes against the bathtub. With shaky hands, he opens his call log and sees that in the list, there’s no one. No Taeil. No Johnny. No Mark. No Sicheng, no Yuta, no Hansol. No Taeyong. And most certainly no Jaehyun.

It’s as if someone has wiped clean his call log or something.

Though his call log might’ve been cleared, he still has his friends’ contacts, and as he scrolls down the list he picks to call Taeil instead of Johnny or Mark, because he’s 1) older, 2) arguably the less nosy out of all his friends, and 3) sensible.

Taeil doesn’t answer the first time, but he answers when Jaehyun tries to call him the second time. He sounds like he’s barely awake when he talks.

“Hey,” he mutters tiredly. “What’s wrong, Jaehyun? It’s my day off today.”

“Oh, uh,” Jaehyun says, stumbling with his words. “Sorry, hyung. I didn’t mean to wake you up—but, but—by chance, do you know where Taeyong is? Like, is he okay? Is he fine?”

Taeil pauses, and in every second of silence that passes by, Jaehyun’s heart is pounding even harder, even harsher against his ribcages.

“Taeyong?” Taeil finally says. “What are you talking about?”

 

**_20.10.9 // 06:44 AM_ **

Jaehyun steps carefully into the living room, which is still dark. The curtains over the windows are still shut, and since the TV is off, too, there’s almost no illumination, except for maybe a bit from the kitchen lights. He doesn’t even know he’s holding his breath until he almost suffocates himself looking at the lump of blankets on the couch.

He lowers himself to his knees, crawling closer to the couch, his voice stuck in his throat. There’s another person sleeping there, and it’s not Sicheng because Sicheng is out on a vacation with Yuta, and it’s not Mark because Mark has morning shifts, and it’s definitely not Taeil or Johnny or anyone else but—

Jaehyun breathes, and he smells his own shampoo, and something else remotely familiar, like cold medicines. The scent of a hospital surgery room.

He reaches out a hand to the blankets, and slowly uncovers it, peeling it away gently. There, on the couch, curling up like a sleeping cat, is Taeyong.

Taeyong Lee, in the flesh, with his soft black hair that Jaehyun hasn’t run his fingers through, heavy eyelids that Jaehyun hasn’t touched, shapely lips that Jaehyun hasn’t tasted – all in such a long time.

 _Oh_ , Jaehyun thinks. _Oh, oh, oh._

Jaehyun’s mouth is dry and he can’t speak. But there, right in front of his eyes, is Taeyong, asleep but very much alive, sickly pale but breathing evenly. He’s still clad in his working shirt and jeans, but he’s there, he’s _right there_ , within Jaehyun’s reach, and not six feet underneath him.

Taeil’s voice is back on his mind again.

_“What are you talking about?”_

Jaehyun wondered if he’d said something wrong, but then:

_“Isn’t he with you?”_

And Jaehyun loses it. He throws himself at Taeyong, gliding his arms under his body and crushes him with all his might, pressing kisses all over Taeyong’s skin that he can reach. He vaguely registers Taeyong’s shocked cries, but he doesn’t fucking care – not when burning tears are spilling out of his eyes, not when he’s busy chanting neurotically Taeyong’s name like a mantra. His heart seems to inflate so much that it’s close to bursting, and he’s having a little trouble breathing, and he wonders if he’s going to die from joy (he’ll be the first case ever to that).

“Jaehyun!” Taeyong cried out, reaching out his hand to grab the back of Jaehyun’s shirt – which would work if Jaehyun _actually_ wears a shirt. When his hand slaps uselessly against Jaehyun’s nape, Taeyong exclaims, “What the hell, why are you naked? And are you _crying?_ ”

“Why are you here?” Jaehyun demands, still kissing every bits of Taeyong’s face like there’s not going to be another day tomorrow. Knowing Taeyong’s bad luck, there might not be. Jaehyun’s totally gonna kiss him until he can’t feel his mouth.

“What do you mean why, I told you I’m coming over yesterday,” Taeyong said, and with one surprising strength, he pushed Jaehyun off him, and the younger rolled off to the floor. “What _is_ wrong with you, seriously?”

Jaehyun gets back up, his hands on Taeyong’s face, pinching and pulling on his cheeks. It’s real. He’s real. Taeyong’s skin is as smooth as ever, and he feels a little bit warm, like he’s having a fever or something. But he’s real. He’s not a ghost. Jaehyun can touch him.

“If you’re here, why didn’t you sleep with me upstairs?” Jaehyun demands, kissing Taeyong’s mouth in between words. “Why are you sleeping heeeeeere.”

“I’m sick,” Taeyong said, and even though he sounded annoyed and overall overwhelmed by Jaehyun’s sudden brimming affection, he kissed Jaehyun back every time. “Don’t want you to get sick, too.”

“But—“ Jaehyun breathed out a laugh. “But you’re here!”

“You’re such a weirdo,” Taeyong said, but he wipes the tears off Jaehyun’s face gently. “Like, I swear, every time you talk, you make less sense.”

“I don’t care, you’re here,” Jaehyun says, and he means it, he doesn’t care about anything anymore. Jaehyun used to scoff at those lame ass love quotes, things like “you’re my world” and “I can’t ever live without you”, but he is now forced to eat his own words, and he decides that they taste pretty good. “I love you, I love you, I love you so much, I’m never gonna let you go, I’ll keep you here forever.”

Taeyong waits him to stop spouting nonsense (to him, anyway), all the while caressing the back of his head like Jaehyun is a crying puppy (he kinda is). Then, when Jaehyun is tired of speaking and just buries his face in the crook of Taeyong’s neck, breathing in his warm scent, he finally says, “Done?”

“Haven’t even scratched the surface,” Jaehyun mutters, but he hugs Taeyong tighter, and the older laughs.

“Did you have a nightmare?” Taeyong asks. “Is that why you’re acting like this now?”

“No,” Jaehyun replies, but then, “Well, yeah, kinda.”

“Okay,” Taeyong says, and he inhales a deep breath. “First of all, I love you, too. Second of all, you’re too old for this. Third, I love you.”

Jaehyun tightens his hold and screws his eyes shut, letting himself shed one more tear, just one more tear, before he forces himself to pull away and looks at Taeyong in the eye. He opens his mouth, but he’s out of words – he can’t define the disorienting feelings of delight inside of his heart of seeing Taeyong staring back at him, and he finally sees again the love that is evermore fluctuating like ocean waves in his eyes.

“What?” Taeyong says. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

Johnny _was_ right. The first call might not have been once in a lifetime thing, but the events it altered, the people it brought back, and the connection it created, mended, and revived – it was once in a lifetime. He’s still staring at Taeyong, still marveling at every part of him that is very much alive and _his_.

The universe is still so fucked up, and fate is still cruel, and Jaehyun still wants to kick their asses if he ever has the chance to.

Just not now, not when Taeyong is here, not when Jaehyun has died once to get him here, not when he’s no longer in danger of drowning.

“You owe me an explanation,” Taeyong says, patting Jaehyun’s cheek to get his attention back to him.

And maybe Jaehyun does, and maybe Taeyong deserves even more than an explanation, but he kisses Taeyong instead because… well, just because.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow look at that questionable ending. oh well. someone sign me up to How to Make a Great Ending class. this fic was hell and heaven at the same time? i cried over this a lot??? also idk if you noticed but i put in some side ships here... well, other than johnil who have been basically married since the start, i didn't plan to let the hints escalate that much, with yuwin, especially. hmm might or might not wanna explore that in the future... i don't trust myself though so you shouldn't too LOL
> 
> more importantly, thank you for all the support this story has received! i really appreciate <3 whenever I feel down and unmotivated (which is often), i reread the comments to make myself feel a bit better! this was such a journey i think it'll be awhile until i'm ready to tackle another chaptered works ;;;;

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading ;; i'm always game to hear what you think in the comments ;; i also have a [cc](https://curiouscat.me/231107) if that's more to your taste, feel free to hit me up anytime!!


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